Search Results

A new portrait to honor Michael T. Cahill, Emeritus President and Joseph Crea Dean, was unveiled at a celebratory luncheon at the Subotnick Center on Jan. 30, where many of his faculty colleagues described him as a cherished friend and recalled how he led Brooklyn Law School adroitly and gracefully through the pandemic.  Cahill served as Dean from July 2019 through June 2023, and was a faculty member from 2003–2016, during which time he also served as Vice Dean (2013–15) and as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (2010–13). After relinquishing his deanship at the end of Spring 2023, he rejoined the faculty in Fall 2023 to teach Criminal Law and Property Law. The portrait of Cahill was painted by artist Linda Tracey Brandon, whose portraits commissioned by Brooklyn Law School also include those of former longtime professors, as well as previous deans Nicholas Allard (2012-2018); Joan Wexler (dean and president, 1994-2010); and David Trager (1983-1993).   Preceding the unveiling, President and Joseph Crea Dean David D. Meyer and fellow professors took the time to express their gratitude to Cahill for his leadership and friendship.   Meyer spoke of following Cahill’s deanship from afar and being impressed with his accomplishments, including his success in enhancing faculty, with 18 full-time appointments, expanding the school’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, creating innovative programs, and his commitment to excellence, “amid the biggest curveballs that could be thrown with Covid, which was compounded by facilities challenges.”  Vice Dean and Centennial Professor Miriam Baer spoke of Cahill being “a beacon for junior faculty” and of his unflappable nature amid the challenges of the pandemic. Speaking to Cahill, Baer said, “If there is a theme that describes your tenure throughout each of these time periods, it is this: You have always taken on these roles not for the status but for the service. You care about this school, about the students who come here seeking to become lawyers, about the staff and administrators who make that transformation possible, and about the professors whose teaching and scholarship fueled this Law School's mission. Your service is a model for others.”  Professor Christina Mulligan, who served as vice dean from 2019 to 2022, also lauded Cahill’s extraordinary ability to build and maintain within the Law School amid what she termed his “wartime deanship.”  Centennial Professor of Law Dana Brakman Reiser, who fondly recounted the close friendship she and her family formed over the years with that of Cahill and his wife, Rosalyn Scaff, and their children added, “I couldn't imagine anyone who could steer the ship with so much aplomb.”  David M. Barse Professor of Law Edward Janger, who is both a colleague and former running partner of Cahill’s, described former marathoner Cahill as someone who “has always played the long game.”  “Michael would walk the halls; he knew what everyone was doing in their scholarship. He gave short, insightful comments that made our work better. And … he was someone to help provide the glue that kept us all together during difficult times,” Janger said.    Additional kind words came from Professor Michael Gerber, who was interim dean when Cahill was vice dean, and then worked with him again when their positions reversed, with Cahill as dean and Gerber as vice dean of research and scholarship.   “In all of the contexts in which we work together,” Gerber said, “Michael has demonstrated—and this has been said before, but it bears repeating—incredible grace and equanimity.”  Following the unveiling of the portrait, which features Cahill standing before the façade of the Law School, Cahill took the podium. A passage from a poem by John Ashberry, he said,  spoke to him during his deanship: “Tomorrow is easy but today is uncharted/Desolate, reluctant as any landscape/To yield what are laws of perspective…” Amid those uncharted days of the pandemic, Cahill said, looking forward felt more positive at a time when “one didn’t always feel that it was something from which we would ever emerge.”  Speaking of the successes that occurred even amid the hardship of those years, Cahill added, “During my time as dean, what I know is that whatever those handful of things might have been, none of them would have been possible without the hard work, the support, the ongoing dedication, and maybe most of all the good cheer of all the people in this room, the faculty and staff of this institution that kept it running every day, even when the days were unsure and desolate. I want to share my deep appreciation and gratitude for having been given that daunting and weighty but ultimately rewarding opportunity to serve this institution in the many ways that I have, and it was certainly made easier, a hard job was made much easier, by the people in this room. So, I want to thank you.”        

The Law School welcomes a new group of adjunct professors with a diverse array of professional backgrounds who will teach classes this spring semester, including a Brooklyn Law School Class of 2011 alumnus. It will be a welcome back to Brooklyn Law School for Adjunct Professor Paul Cossu ’11, who will teach the Art Law Seminar. Cossu is a partner at Pryor Cashman’s art law group, where he works on litigation and transactional matters for galleries, auction houses, museums, artists, advisors, collectors, and other members of the global arts community. He has lectured on art law at Christie’s Education in New York and is on the board of Printed Matter, a non-profit organization dedicated to the dissemination, understanding, and appreciation of artists’ books. In addition to earning a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School, he graduated with a B.A. from McGill University. Read the bios below to learn more about the other adjunct professors joining us to teach courses this spring. (Note: We will share our clinical and experiential learning adjunct professors in a subsequent article.) Adjunct Professor Precious Benally, who will be teaching Native American Law, is a citizen of the Diné Nation from Northern New Mexico. She has been a lecturer at Columbia Law School since September 2020. Through her own firm, P. Benally Consulting, Benally assists Tribal Nations in developing and enhancing their justice systems by helping to implement problem-solving court programs with an emphasis on trauma-informed practices, alternatives to incarceration, and drug treatment and rehabilitation. Her areas of interest include international indigenous law and policy, drug treatment, peacemaking and restorative justice practices, teleservices, and developing technology-based training and information-sharing platforms. She earned a J.D. from Columbia Law School, and a B.A. from Dartmouth College. Adjunct Professor Louisa DeRose will join colleague Sarah B. Hechtman in teaching a Dispute Resolution in Family and Marital Law (simulation course). DeRose is a partner at Rower, focused on matrimonial and family law manners, with additional background in transactional real estate law. Prior to joining Rower, she practiced matrimonial law in a boutique Manhattan firm, was a member of her family’s Queens-based firm, DeRose & Surico, and worked as an assistant district attorney in Queens County. DeRose earned a J.D. from New York Law School and a B.A. from New York University. Adjunct Professor Sarah B. Hechtman, who will lead a Dispute Resolution in Family and Marital Law (simulation course), is counsel at Rower and has been a matrimonial and family law attorney for more than 15 years. Hechtman is also an adjunct professor at Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, where she teaches psychology and law. She earned a J.D. from Columbia University, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an A.B. from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges. Adjunct Professor David Nachman, who will teach Opioids and the AG’s Office, was a George W. and Sadella D. Crawford Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School in the fall term. He is currently special counsel in the New York State Attorney General’s office where from 2011 to 2021 he served in a variety of enforcement and litigation roles including as an enforcement section chief in the charities bureau, senior enforcement counsel in the executive division, and more recently as counsel for opioids and impact litigation. He received a B.A. from Brandeis University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. Adjunct Professor Naomi Sunshine, who will teach Employment Law, is a director of the Public Interest Law Center and Academic Careers Program at NYU School of Law, where she previously served as an acting assistant professor of lawyering. Prior to that, she practiced employment law for seven years at public interest law firms in New York and San Francisco. Her articles on labor & employment law have been published in the Lewis & Clark Law Review and N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change. Sunshine earned a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from NYU School of Law.  Adjunct Professor Li Yu, who will teach Congressional Investigations, is a partner at DiCello Levitt’s New York office, with a focus on whistleblower and securities litigations, and an adjunct professor at Cardozo Law. In 2021 and 2022, Li worked as senior counsel to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations under Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) Prior to his work on Capitol Hill, Li served for over a decade as an assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, including four years as the senior counsel to the civil fraud units. He earned a J.D. from Columbia University Law School and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.

Commissioner Hester M. Peirce of the Securities and Exchange Commission fielded questions from Brooklyn Law students in a law and policy Q&A, which, along with a fintech panel, was part of a wide-ranging legal discussion of cryptocurrency, high-frequency trading, and other financial technology—all at a time when regulators face the fast-evolving landscape fintech has created. The April 5 event, titled “ETF Spots and Crypto Bots: The Evolving Frontier of Fintech Law and Policy,” was held at the Forchelli Conference Center, and offered attendees CLE credit. Before calling on students and attendees to ask questions, Professor of Clinical Law Jonathan Askin asked Peirce about what it is like to work at the SEC and its approach toward fintech. “How do folks keep track of technological developments that may, in fact, affect financial markets and securities?” he asked. Peirce explained that, among the 4,500 employees of the SEC, there is an Office of Technology that serves as the hub for financial technology and has been lately focusing a great deal on artificial intelligence. “So those people are extremely knowledgeable, and they're following all the latest developments in technology, they're experimenting with different things. But for the rest of us, a lot of what we're doing has nothing to do with technology,” said Peirce. “We're just trying to stay ahead of these massive rules that are coming our way and enforcement actions, which we're considering…It’s really quite the job to keep up.” The agency works with other relevant agencies both inside the United States and internationally on securities regulation overall and cryptocurrency. She urged students who are interested in fintech regulation to take administrative law, if they have not already, and said that when she worked at a law firm, her perception of how the SEC worked was not fully informed. “I think one thing that you don't really learn in administrative law is that each agency has such a different character, you really have to get inside an agency to understand how it works,” Peirce said. “And what you realize is that a lot of the day-to-day activity of the SEC really is the staff engaging with people and trying to weave a very complex set of rules and trying to help people understand how those rules apply to their unique facts and circumstances.” That bread-and-butter work has slowed in recent years as the agency has become more risk-averse, and slower to address issues related to fintech, said Peirce, who had noted that she was sharing her own opinions, not that of the SEC, during the Q&A. She would like to see innovations addressed more expeditiously than they are. “It's really a very troubling problem. Because if you can't get these deep experts in securities law to really grapple with these difficult problems, I don't know how we're going to move forward,” she said. Askin interjected that the lag in the SEC addressing such issues presents a prime opportunity for interested students after they graduate, and Peirce agreed. She shared some career advice: “There are a lot of lawyers at the SEC, so being in law school is a good start, but try to learn some of the accounting and try to get that financial side of things as well,” Peirce said. “Take as much administrative law as you can, and then I would say intellectual curiosity is very important. You can help yourself to understand the financial industry by reading the financial press, and then getting to know the technology. I think that will be very, very important.” President and Joseph Crea Dean David D. Meyer, who welcomed attendees to the Law School, fittingly mentioned the community’s recent loss of Professor Emerita Roberta Karmel, the first woman to be appointed as an SEC commissioner, and a longtime professor at the Law School. “She was someone who blazed a trail, and here at Brooklyn Law School, she was an imminent scholar and brought great national acclaim to our faculty,” Meyer said. Peirce also spoke of the lasting influence at the SEC of Karmel, whom she had a chance to interview early on in her tenure at the agency. “Yes, she was the first woman Commissioner, but I think, for me, the most interesting thing about her is that she was just always intellectually curious,” Peirce said. “It is such a delight for me to go back now and read her speeches. I routinely go back and say, ‘What did she say about this issue?’ Because a lot of the issues that look new are not really so new, and her analysis of those issues was brilliant then and it is brilliant now and still informs my thinking.” The panel that followed featured Michelle Ann Gitlitz ’04, managing partner at the New York office of Arktouros and the author of Reimagining Payments: The Business Case for Digital Currencies (Racquet Publishing, 2023); Jason P. Gottlieb, partner and chair of digital assets and chair of white collar and regulatory enforcement, Morrison Cohen; Vijay Raghavan, associate professor of law; and Kayvan Sadeghi, partner at Jenner & Block. The moderator was Peter Scoolidge ’08, partner at Scoolidge, Peters, Russotti & Fox.

Examining and critiquing criminal law theories of punishment, their justifications, and their contrasting approaches, Professor Adam J. Kolber’s new book, Punishment for the Greater Good (Oxford University Press, June 2024), was the subject of a spirited panel discussion on Oct. 17 at the Subotnick Center.    The panel, moderated by Brooklyn Law’s Les Fagen Professor of Law Alice Ristroph, included  distinguished philosophy and legal scholars Chad Flanders, Professor of Law and (by courtesy) Philosophy, St. Louis University School of Law; Nathan Hanna, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Drexel University; Kierstan Kaushal-Carter, Provost's Postdoctoral Fellow in Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School; and Benjamin Vilhauer, Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, CUNY City College and Graduate Center.  In his welcoming remarks, President and Joseph Crea Dean David Meyer spoke of the fundamental and timeless nature of the themes Kolber addresses in his scholarship, “including the theoretical justification for the community acting through the state to impose punishment on individual members,” and the “urgent policy questions we now face about incarceration, decriminalization, alternative forms of community intervention, and socialization.”  "What, if anything, justifies the suffering and deprivation of liberty associated with incarceration and other forms of punishment?" asked Kolber in introducing his work and the contrasting punishment theories of retributivism and consequentialism that attempt to answer that question. “Retributivists say that punishment is appropriate when wrongdoers get what they deserve in proportion to their wrongdoing,” he said. “Consequentialists, by contrast, claim that if punishments like incarceration are justified, they are justified because they lead to good consequences, such as crime prevention and offender rehabilitation, that more than make up for the suffering and other bad consequences they inevitably cause.”   The overarching argument made in his book, Kolber explained, is that in order to address incarceration in the here and now, “a pure consequentialist approach to punishment (one that denies the value of deserved suffering) is better than the standard retributivist approach (which justifies suffering based on moral desert).”  He then presented the main claims of the book, emphasizing that even though proportionality is central to punishment, its meaning is elusive and it can have very counterintuitive implications. He defended a consequentialist approach that gives greater weight to the suffering of those incarcerated and “advocates both more experimentation in the criminal justice system and more creativity to help us find better ways to reduce our reliance on jails and prisons.”  Responding to Kolber’s arguments for the pure consequentialist approach, the panelists presented their reasoned points of agreement and disagreement, which prompted a dynamic exchange with Kolber and fellow experts.    Flanders spoke of the difficulty in “applying consequentialism concretely,” moving from theory into practice. In particular, he referred to the challenges of applying consequentialist cost-benefit analysis in the criminal justice system. He defended a more traditional emphasis on fairness and the idea of proportional punishment that retributivism includes. “We can’t get rid of proportionality, as much as we try,” Flanders said.    Hanna said he appreciated Kolber’s “creative and challenging criticisms of retributivism, and that the work seriously engages with prisons and their concerns and is motivated by a humane concern with everyone's welfare.” That said, he professed to being skeptical of reliance on moral theories  and “appealing to them as a way to defend positions and efforts of public policy” and detailed his reasoning for that position.  “It is hard to think of a more severe treatment for a person than to confine them to incarceration,” said Kaushal-Carter, in weighing her thoughts on both the consequentialist and retributivist positions. “Even for short terms, incarceration can cause irreparable harm to the people who experience it, and their loved ones. The seriousness of incarceration is a punishment that fits with the high justificatory bar that retributive theory has to clear in order to inflict it.” She added that she admired Kolber’s work for raising the possibility of carceral abolition and hopes her comments invite consideration of abolition as a moral imperative.  Vilhauer discussed Kolber’s epistemic challenge to retributivism. He supports Kolber’s claim that it is puzzling why retributivists demand such a high standard of proof (the “BARD” standard  of proof beyond a reasonable doubt) when considering questions of guilt yet seem to tolerate much lower levels of confidence about fundamental moral propositions that retributivists must also believe. For example, retributivists who seek to punish must believe that we have the kind of free will that generates moral responsibility. Vilhauer questioned, however, whether Kolber’s argument might be turned around to ask whether consequentialists can have adequate confidence in their views in order to punish.   Ristroph raised questions about whether we can accurately assign levels of confidence to moral propositions and whether we have enough evidence to believe that incarceration truly does have a deterrent effect. She referenced psychological research about human bias that shapes our analysis of issues related to punishment.  “I’m so grateful for everything that everyone had to say,” Kolber said, before launching the lively Q&A period. “The consequentialist’s dream is to reduce total suffering in the world, and if they can do it that’s great whether it be through carceral abolition or other creative proposals that reduce suffering while maintaining public safety. The important thing is that we need to have an open mind and be more willing to experiment. I hope we accept the consequentialist invitation to do so.”   

Professor Alexis Hoag-Fordjour, co-director of the Center for Criminal Justice and Dean’s Research Scholar, has been selected to receive the prestigious 2025 Derrick A. Bell Award at the upcoming Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Annual Conference.   The Minority Law Teacher’s Section of the AALS established the Derrick Bell Award to honor a junior faculty member who, through activism, mentoring, colleagueship, teaching, or scholarship, has made an extraordinary contribution to legal education, the legal system, or social justice. It was named after the late Derrick A. Bell Jr., the first tenured African American faculty member at Harvard Law School.    “It is wonderful to see Alexis receive this very well-deserved national recognition for her leadership and innovative scholarly contributions in the field of criminal law reform and social justice,” Dean David D. Meyer said. Associate Dean Jocelyn Simonson added, “The Derrick Bell Award is a fitting recognition for Professor Hoag-Fordjour, because she combines mentorship and community-building with social and legal critique in ways that benefit us all, and always with a reminder of the deep inequalities with which we must contend as we push for a better world.”    Hoag-Fordjour, who joined the faculty in 2021, teaches Criminal Procedure, Evidence, and Abolition. Her innovative teaching style, where she incorporates critical race theory, popular culture, and real-world scenarios into classroom discussions, has made her a favorite among students. The Brooklyn Law School Student Bar Association named Hoag-Fordjour Faculty Member of the Year in 2021–22 and again in 2023-24.  She is currently serving a one-year term as the inaugural scholar-in-residence at the Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC), a nonprofit progressive think tank and law firm in Washington, D.C. While at CAC, she is conducting research relying on the history, text, and spirit of Reconstruction to provide a clarifying framework for interpreting constitutional rights in the present.  Her most recent article, Back to the Future: (Re)Constructing  Ineffective Assistance of Counsel, appearing in the UC Davis Law Review, explores a new way of determining ineffective assistance of counsel rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. In addition, she has three forthcoming projects slated for publication: the first is a responsive essay, Client Counseling in Post-Conviction, in the Boston University Law Review; the second is a full-length article, Universal Public Defense, appearing in the Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review; and the third is a book chapter, Defining Expertise: A Critical Approach to Police Officer Testimony, in Critical Evidence (Cambridge University Press, 2026), edited by I. Bennett Capers, Jasmine Harris, and Julia Simon-Kerr.  The Derrick Bell Award also recognizes Hoag-Fordjour’s longstanding commitment to activism and social justice advocacy. Her efforts are focused on alleviating racial inequality, shrinking the carceral system, and civil rights. She frequently provides statewide and national trainings for public defenders, focusing on client-centered representation, litigating racial discrimination claims, and navigating new issues in Sixth Amendment jurisprudence. A former capital appellate defender, Hoag-Fordjour is active in advocating against the death penalty and serves on the boards of the Death Penalty Information Center, the Eighth Amendment Project, and chaired the NYC Bar Association Capital Punishment Committee. She supports appellate attorneys representing people on death row, authoring expert reports on racial discrimination in jury selection and amicus briefs clarifying appellate procedure. Hoag-Fordjour uses her platform as a professor to provide legal commentary in print, radio, and television, giving nuanced arguments about racism and injustice on contemporary legal issues.  The award will be presented on January 10, 2025, at the AALS Annual Meeting in San Francisco. 

A discussion of Vice Dean and Centennial Professor Miriam Baer’s new book Myths and Misunderstandings in White-Collar Crime, (Cambridge University Press, 2023), drew a highly decorated panel of experts who discussed Baer’s book and its core critique of federal enforcement institutions. Baer, a leading expert in matters concerning business and criminal law, is a former federal prosecutor and has taught criminal law-related courses at Brooklyn Law School for years. She was joined in an Oct. 17 discussion of the book by: Samuel Buell, Bernard M. Fishman Distinguished Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law; Daniel Richman, Paul J. Kellner Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; and Andrew Weissman, Professor of Practice, New York University School of Law and former lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office (and frequent MSNBC commentator). Brooklyn Law Professor Adam Kolber served as moderator. The book explores the shortcomings of the federal criminal code as it relates to crimes of deception and corruption. Using real-world examples, Baer draws on theories of institutional design and behavioral psychology to offer a step-by-step framework for revising parts of the federal code, demystifying white-collar crime’s enforcement, and improving its discourse. Speaking of the current state of affairs, Baer said, “White-collar crime’s institutions have confused and misled us. A combination of poorly tracked offenses, ungraded laws, and underwritten codes obfuscates the federal government’s enforcement activities and distorts our assessment of deception and its enforcement. As a result, we lack a clear understanding of what our institutions are doing, and we lose faith in them.” After Baer offered an overview of the book and its proposed solutions, the panel then took up the discussion. Buell, an author of numerous articles and books including the casebook, Corporate Crime:  An Introduction to the Law and its Enforcement, praised the timeliness of Baer’s book for those write about corporate and white-collar crime and highlighted Baer’s argument that the system as currently configured fails to educate and inform the general public. “[Baer] is the first, I think, to comprehensively nail down the application of this problem to white collar crime,” Buell said. He further discussed Baer’s “two novel contributions to the field” which included her explanation of a temporal “gap” between the moment a person is “liable” for a crime and the moment a case becomes “viable” to a given prosecutor. Throughout the evening, Baer and Buell debated the strength of this “viability/liability” gap and its attendant impact on government enforcement decisions. Richman, a former federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, called Baer’s book, “a brave contribution” because, unlike many other scholars, Baer’s book does not blame all of white-collar crime’s shortcomings on prosecutors. Speaking favorably of Baer’s book, Richman concluded, “Miriam does not give Congress a pass, and she holds its feet to the fire.” Richman also spoke of the challenges to increasing transparency in the criminal justice system. Reflecting on Baer’s proposal to subdivide federal criminal statutes and introduce “grading” to white-collar crime, Richman questioned the informational benefits of moving to a graded system: “A relationship between cases and adjudicate results and the world of plea-bargaining means that’s almost never true,” Richman said. “In a sense, grading ends up transferring a lot of authority to prosecutors.… And prosecutors are going to be using these pieces of code as tools in plea-bargaining.” Weissmann, a well-known commentator on federal and white-collar crime, drew on his experience as a former general counsel for the FBI and former prosecutor to offer his assessment of Baer’s argument. Acknowledging Baer’s critique of the federal criminal code, Weissmann nevertheless concluded: “The issue that I see is more on the enforcement side, almost regardless of whether we have a cleaner system.” Responding to the commentary of her fellow scholars, Baer argued that we should “push our legislators,” to rewrite faulty statutes, regardless of the plausibility of Congress taking up such a reform project at this moment. The evening ended on a high note, with Baer’s observation that the purpose of the book was to plant an idea that could be taken up in the future.

By Nanette Maxim At the end of the Spring 2023 semester, three of Brooklyn Law School’s respected professors —Beryl Jones-Woodin, Larry Solan, and Winnie Taylor—announced their retirements. As innovators, scholars, teachers, and colleagues, each has made an enormous impact on our Brooklyn Law School community. Here, we look at Professor of Law Emerita Winnie Taylor. For Professor of Law Emerita Winnie Taylor, creating a landscape of equal opportunity has been the cornerstone of her accomplished career, as a lawyer, scholar, teacher, mentor, and adviser to financial and government institutions. Recognized as a national authority in consumer law, contracts, and credit and employment discrimination, Taylor has shared her vast knowledge with Brooklyn Law students since she joined the faculty in 2008. She also played an integral role at the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law, as an Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Law Fellowship Committee member, and as a faculty adviser for the Black Law Students Association. “For 15 years, Professor Taylor was a mainstay of our contracts and commercial-law faculty,” said Professor Michael Cahill, who is also the school’s former President and Joseph Crea Dean. “Both inside and outside of the classroom, she was dedicated to promoting the success of all of our students.” For more than four decades, Taylor has played a part in shaping equal opportunity under the law, serving as a consultant for Fair Lending and Workplace Equity, focusing on equal credit opportunity and equal employment opportunity laws. She is a former member of the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council and has trained attorneys at the Federal Trade Commission on fair lending and consumer banking issues as well as numerous representatives from the credit union industry. Taylor has written extensively on the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act and legal issues related to the subprime mortgage crisis and fair lending compliance issues, especially as they involve race. In her 2021 Loyola Consumer Law Review article, Fintech and Race-Based Inequality in the Home Mortgage and Auto Financing Markets, she cited the findings of a University of California, Berkeley study that she said “show that fintech and traditional lenders charged otherwise equal Latinx and African American borrowers higher interest rates than White borrowers for purchase and refinanced mortgages, costing the minority borrowers $765 million yearly, for the same product… The worry is that as fintech firms continue to grow and eventually overtake the financial services industry, the racial wealth gap will become even wider given that home ownership is the primary source of wealth for most Americans.” After her early years practicing as an attorney at Rochester, N.Y., firm Harris, Beach, Wilcox, Rubin & Levey, Taylor began her teaching career at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. In 1990, she joined the faculty of the Cornell University School of Law, where she was the first woman to of color to receive tenure, and where she is now professor emeritus. As Cornell’s associate provost, she was responsible for creating and shaping university policy as it relates to faculty development and enhancement, diversity issues, academic programs, regulatory compliance, and recruiting. (Although retired from Brooklyn Law School, Taylor continues to teach at Cornell.) Taylor also focused on international projects. She journeyed to Rwanda, beginning in 2006, where she worked with fellow professors on that country’s common law reform project, helping to draft a new code of contract law and training commercial court judges on the proposed reforms. In 2010, the Rwandan legislature adopted a modified version of the proposed common law code of contract law. Ultimately, for Taylor, the pursuit of equity under the law has been both a professional and personal one. As she once said, in her address to the 1992 graduating class at the Cornell School of Law, “I am acutely aware of the fact that law has shaped my life. A law was passed to give me the right to vote. A law was passed to give me equal employment opportunity, and … on May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education, a decision that gave me the right to equal educational opportunity. Were it not for that decision, history would be altered, and I would not be your speaker today. … So, I take the law and lawyers very seriously. I have always counted on the technical skill and moral vision of lawyers to make us better people and the commitment of lawyers to the attainment of fairness and equality of opportunity to make this world a better place.”

At the end of the Spring 2023 semester, three of Brooklyn Law School’s respected professors —Beryl Jones-Woodin, Larry Solan, and Winnie Taylor—announced their retirement. As innovators, scholars, teachers, and colleagues, each has made an enormous impact on our Law School community. Here, we take a look at Professor of Law Emerita Beryl Jones-Woodin. Since joining the Brooklyn Law School faculty to teach property, copyright, and art law in 1984, Professor Beryl Jones-Woodin has witnessed dramatic changes in her field. “In art and copyright law, there are always new and different areas of inquiry,” Jones-Woodin said. “That’s what continues to make it interesting and intellectually challenging. When I started my career, computers and computer programs didn’t play the role they do now, entwined in everyday existence. Today, with artificial intelligence (AI), there are questions like, ‘Who owns the work created by an AI program?’ These issues need to be addressed in significant ways.” In addition to sharing her great enthusiasm and expertise in her Brooklyn Law School classes (which also included international intellectual property and professional responsibility), Jones-Woodin has given students real-world experience, taking them into the field to meet with general counsel at museums such as Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation and New York auction houses such as Christie’s. In yearly Art Law Seminars, she has explored the ways in which the law regulates the creation of art, the cultural implications of art, and the art market, including moral rights, fair use, museum law, cultural property law, and rights of privacy.  She has also provided legal advice to museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, Frick Collection, Brooklyn Historical Society, Museum of the City of New York, and the Studio Museum; has served as a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the Copyright Society; chaired the Association of American Law Schools’ Art Law Section and its Intellectual Property Section; and been active in the New York City Bar on its committees for art law, communications and media law, and copyright law. “I really enjoyed teaching and thinking about how to present complex ideas and philosophical and social issues, in a way that people who were smart but not yet analyzing like lawyers could talk and think about the law, to understand the basics as well as the complexities,” Jones-Woodin said. She has also witnessed—as well as spearheaded—positive changes in the Law School itself. “When Beryl joined us in 1984, she was one of four women appointed that year and was the Law School’s first African American tenured-track professor,” said Professor Michael Cahill, former President and Joseph Crea Dean. “She has had a profound impact on the Law School and is a fierce advocate for students, and for diversity, equity, and inclusion.” As a former Dean of Students, a member of the Clerkship Committee, and an advisor to both the Black Law Students Association and Art Law Association, she played a role in guiding diverse students. “I worked with students of color, with students of different faiths, to enhance their experience and address their concerns about navigating their legal education that may be distinct from others’ concerns,” Jones-Woodin said. The Community Conversations forums she launched help students to understand and experience the issues of the day and to use their legal training to think through these issues. “It started with the O.J. Simpson trial, and the conversations still go on today, with discussions such as the recent one that Arthur Pinto & Stephen Bohlen Associate Dean of Inclusion & Diversity and Professor of Legal Writing Joy Kanwar led on the Supreme Court affirmative action decision,” Jones-Woodin said. “What’s been most important to me has been the relationships with students, getting to know them, supporting them, and observing how they have grown and become important members of the legal community,” she said. “I’m very lucky to have spent my years at Brooklyn, with incredibly smart and interesting people as colleagues. It’s been a good ride.” As far as life after Brooklyn Law, Jones-Woodin said, she isn’t making plans but simply staying open to the possibilities, “to grow intellectually, and to be optimistically engaged with the wider world.”

Commencement Day came with a very special bonus for class of 2022 valedictorian Brian Fischer. His grandfather Louis J. Castellano, Jr., 95, a Law School alumnus from the class of ’49, presented him with his degree. Brian is the third generation of his family to graduate from Brooklyn Law School. His great-grandfather, Louis Castellano, Sr. (1893-1964), a federal criminal lawyer and referee in bankruptcy cases for the Eastern District of New York, not only graduated in 1914, but also went on to be an assistant professor at the Law School for a time. “Participating in Brian’s graduation is an honor I never thought I would have,” said Mr. Castellano, Jr., a World War II veteran and a civil litigator who has been in practice on Long Island for more than 70 years. A champion of pro bono representation, particularly for individuals residing in drug rehabilitation centers, battered women’s shelters, and homeless shelters, Mr. Castellano, Jr., was Chair of the Special Committee on Volunteer Lawyers for the New York State Bar Association. “It’s a wonderful perpetuation of family traditions, and I couldn’t be happier to be here for this moment.” Brian says that although his grandfather never explicitly encouraged him to study law, the influence was always there. “I remember when I was young, seeing Grandpa talking into a tape recorder, making notes on cases. My brothers and I helped him out in his office, doing filing runs, and he’d take us out for lunch. We even went to the courthouse with him a few times. He’s always been so supportive of me. When I decided to go to law school, a lot of that decision was because of him and the family tradition. And when I called him to tell him I was going to Brooklyn Law, which was my top pick, he was very excited.” The work of great-grandad Louis Castellano, Sr., made a surprise appearance for Brian during one of Professor James Macleod’s Evidence classes. After Macleod’s lecture on Supreme Court case Michelson vs. U.S., 335 U.S. 469 (1948), Brian happened to be speaking with his mother, Suzanne Castellano Fischer, about his great-grandfather’s practice, and she told him he had argued a criminal defense case before the Supreme Court. Brian searched Westlaw, and, he said, “It was a goosebumps moment. There was my great-grandfather’s name as one of the attorneys that argued Michelson. When I mentioned it to my grandfather, he clearly recalled going to D.C. with the family to be there for his father during the high-court arguments, and he even remembered the dissent.” Almost 75 years after that case, Brian is looking forward to beginning his career this fall at Latham & Watkins LLP, in the Emerging Companies group. “Brian has always excelled in what he did,” said Mr. Castellano, Jr., “and he always had a very positive attitude.” A 2021 IAPP Westin Scholar Award and five-time CALI Award winner, Brian has been Notes editor for the Brooklyn Law Review, President of Legal Hackers, and a member of the Intellectual Property Law Association, Business Law Association, and Antitrust and Competition Law Association. Having received his B.A. in economics from Harvard, before entering law school, Brian worked as a research analyst and senior trading specialist. He’s also had a long sporting life as lacrosse player, recruited from Harvard as a professional for the Boston Cannons, and now team captain of the two-time champion Rad Dads team in the ULAX League. Through it all, said Brian, his grandfather has been there to cheer him on. “He came to every game when I was growing up.” “Life goes so fast,” says Mr. Castellano, Jr., “and our grandson is now starting a career. We couldn’t be more proud of him.”

The 2nd Annual Sports Law Symposium gave Brooklyn Law School students a look at what it’s like to work in sports law, culminating with insights from the lead attorney at fast-growing OneTeam Partners, who described growing opportunities in trademarks and licensing.    Professor Jodi Balsam, who teaches Sports Law and is the director of externships, conducted the Nov. 11 event’s keynote conversation with Tim Slavin, the chief legal officer of OneTeam Partners. Cofounded by the MLB and NFL Players Associations, the three-year-old company commercializes group licensing rights of professional and collegiate athletes and has seen rapid growth. It was reportedly valued at $1.9 billion in September 2022 after its founding investor, RedBird Capital Partners, sold its 40 percent share to HPS Investment Partners, Atlantic Park Strategic Capital Fund, and Morgan Stanley Tactical Value.   The growth, including for its legal team, will continue, Slavin said, adding that the company is seeking an additional “five-star candidate” to join the legal team. The legal team at OneTeam focuses on licensing work, as well as media, content production, corporate M&A, and strategic advising. As general counsel, Slavin said he works to protect the company from litigation, ensure compliance, provide strategic advisory services, and keep up with business trends while not going too far ahead on those trends.   After the exit of RedBird Capital, the company is targeting further growth, he said.   “For 2.0, the management at the company is expected to deliver acquisitions, expansion,” Slavin said, adding that the company sees opportunities in working with the NBA and NHL Player Associations, two sports that aren’t currently under its umbrella, as well as expansion in the media space including content capture and production work (not broadcasting), and using the marketing power of its athletes across sports.   “A lot of people wear and use products because athletes use and wear products,” he said, agreeing with Balsam that Tom Brady and the TB12 Method, which Brady cofounded, is a prime example.  “Brands are built on the backs of the athletes…the prominent public persona who wear and use them, and it makes a lot of sense for us to consider an opportunity in that space.”  Slavin also shared insights on how the company works with college athletes. In recruiting them, OneTeam Partners does not work with the colleges or universities themselves, but instead partners with companies such as Opendorse and the National College Players Association, which aim to educate college athletes about licensing opportunities. OneTeam uses knowledge from its work with professional athletes to inform its work with student athletes.   “Word of mouth matters, reputation matters, transparency and honesty matters, and we try to use all of that when we communicate to the college athletes what we do,” Slavin said. “I was a failed college athlete myself, but if someone came to me when I was 18 years old and told me I was going to sign a piece of paper and give them rights to put me in a videogame or a trading card, I don’t know if I would know what to do with that. …I would have some apprehension and I would want to know what are the bona fides of the people who are asking to do this.”  Balsam asked Slavin about OneTeam’s role in the trademark space as a growing number of athletes are trying to protect their names, their personal catchphrases, and even their signature poses through trademarks. OneTeam Partners can only capitalize in the context of group licensing in ways such as featuring one player on the cover of packaging or a videogame, he said.   “That’s [an example of] separating the player from the group,” he said. “A lot of the bigger-name athletes are seeing the opportunity in their own brands. We don’t leverage the IP that they own. We try to exploit it with and for them when they’re a part of the group.”  Another opportunity OneTeam sees is in providing former players with opportunities after retirement by aligning them with current players in branding opportunities. The Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association is doing that for baseball players, but he sees opportunities in other sports.   “Opportunities dwindle significantly once playing careers are over for so many of the athletes,” Slavin said.   Organized by students, the event was presented by the Brooklyn Entertainment and Sports Law Society and the Intellectual Property Law Association (IPLA).     

Recently-confirmed SEC Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga expressed a mix of caution about cryptocurrency’s risks and hope that it could in the future exist in a compatible way within the framework of federal securities law during a keynote speech at a packed Brooklyn Law School symposium on fintech, cryptocurrency, and the law.   In his Nov. 16 address to students, alumni, faculty and industry professionals, Lizárraga described the emergence of cryptocurrency and the rapid growth the industry has faced in recent years. Without naming the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, he alluded to the recent turmoil spurred by the sudden collapse of the company, which filed for bankruptcy just days before his speech, on Nov. 11, after a nearly $8 billion run on deposits. Lizárraga pointed to various risks facing the cryptocurrency space, including–as federal regulators examining digital asset markets have found– increasing levels of fraud, a lack of transparency, and market volatility. The commissioner also questioned the accuracy of a common narrative that blockchain can provide financial access to low-income and underserved communities “that the traditional financial system has left behind,” such as the unbanked. “Does it offer genuine financial inclusivity and robust protections for digital asset purchasers and investors? In my opinion, as of now, and despite the best intentions of many, the answer is no,” he said. Despite his cautionary remarks, Lizárraga ended his remarks on a hopeful note: “Innovative blockchain technology can exist side-by-side and be compatible with the existing federal securities law framework,” he said. “The current moment offers an opportunity to make a meaningful difference for the success of blockchain technology and, possibly, for the financial future of millions. But it requires a good-faith, honest, and conscious choice to comply with the law and to put the interests of investors first. Read the transcript of his full speech. After his remarks, Lizárraga departed the event to return to Washington D.C., turning the microphone over to Jonathan Askin, Professor of Clinical Law at Brooklyn Law School. Before introducing the panelists, Askin spoke about the future of the cryptocurrency and fintech space—asserting that new lawyers will be the ones to craft the legislation that will ultimately guide the field.    “I want to say to all of you coming into the profession that we are living through a revolutionary inflection point like we’ve never seen before,” Askin said. “I can think of maybe four or five times in U.S. history in which young lawyers have this rare opportunity to leapfrog into and disrupt a profession that otherwise was controlled by the old folks down there on Wall Street who are running scared from blockchain and crypto.”   “Rules are going to be written, and they’re either going to be written by us—who are well informed and educated, with good public policy instincts—or they’re going to be written by people who know nothing. Which is the world that we want to see?”  Panelists included Michelle Gitlitz ’04, general counsel for digital payments firm Flexa; Joshua Ashley Klayman, U.S. head of fintech and head of blockchain and digital assets for law firm Linklaters; and Cassie Lentchner, board member for digital asset platform BitGo. The panel was moderated by Peter Scoolidge ’08, general counsel for blockchain payments platform Keeta.   The wide-ranging discussion that followed took on various issues concerning the world of fintech and cryptocurrency. The current lack of regulatory clarity on how different cryptocurrency assets are classified—whether as securities or commodities—was a common thread touched upon by all of the panelists over the course of the discussion.   Gitlitz stressed the importance of understanding the technologies underlying blockchain and cryptocurrency, and how that understanding could be used to inform both practice and regulation.  “When you really understand how the technology works, it can be really useful, even if you’ve not been practicing law for that many years,” Gitlitz said. “And I agree with Professor Askin that when all of this shakes out and you’re trying to define what is a ‘crypto asset security’ and ‘what is a digital commodity,’ It’s the people in this room who are going to have the most understanding of where the chips should fall.”  Other points of conversation included ongoing and widely-watched litigation impacting the industry, such as the SEC v. Ripple case; the likelihood of future regulation; the importance of complying with anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations; and more.  An audience Q&A wrapped up the discussion, which was followed by a reception.  

Two new faculty members will be joining the Law School in July 2021. Alexis Hoag, a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, will be joining from Columbia Law School, and corporate governance expert Andrew Jennings from Stanford Law School. “We are thrilled to be welcoming Alexis and Andrew to the faculty this fall,” said Dean Michael T. Cahill. “These two brilliant and talented additions to our faculty will build on, and carry forward, the existing strengths of our criminal and business law curriculum, scholarship, and academic centers. We are fortunate to have them joining us.” Alexis Hoag Alexis Hoag is the inaugural practitioner-in-residence at the Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative for Civil and Political Rights at Columbia Law School. Prior to academia, she spent over a decade as a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer. She plans to teach classes in evidence, criminal law and procedure, and an upper-level seminar in prison abolition. Hoag’s scholarship examines the ways in which policies, doctrines, and practices within the criminal legal system erode people’s constitutional rights and perpetuate racial subordination. In her forthcoming article, “Black on Black Representation,” 96 New York University Law Review __ (2021), she argues that an expansion of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel of choice could help combat structural racism within the criminal legal system. She also serves on the editorial board of the Amicus Journal and chairs the capital punishment committee of the New York City Bar Association. Hoag previously served as senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), where she represented clients in a variety of civil and criminal matters, including Davis, et al. v. City of New York and New York City Housing Authority, a federal class action lawsuit seeking systemic reform of the New York City Police Department’s discriminatory practices against Black and Latinx public housing residents and guests. As an assistant federal public defender in Nashville, Tenn., Hoag primarily represented clients convicted of capital offenses in federal post-conviction proceedings. She has authored amicus curiae briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court and state supreme courts challenging the sentences of individuals convicted of capital offenses. Hoag graduated from Yale College and NYU School of Law, where she was a Derrick Bell Public Interest Scholar and an editor on the Review of Law and Social Change. She clerked for the Hon. John T. Nixon of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. “I’ve been fortunate to have already partnered with members of Brooklyn Law School’s faculty, examining ways to transform the criminal legal system, doctrinally and in practice,” said Hoag. “I am thrilled to continue this work, and to mentor and guide students as they form their professional identities as lawyers.” Andrew Jennings Andrew Jennings is a lecturer in law and the teaching fellow for the Corporate Governance & Practice program at Stanford Law School. He will be teaching classes in corporate law and securities regulation. Jennings’s research interests focus on corporate governance and compliance, securities regulation, and white-collar crime. In “Follow-Up Enforcement,” 70 Duke Law Journal __ (forthcoming 2021), he looks at how enforcement agencies reduce corporate penalties for promises of reform. Such arrangements can pose problems, and he proposes ways to mitigate them. Jennings is also the creator and host of the Business Scholarship Podcast, where he interviews business scholars about their recent research. In addition to legal scholars, he also interviews experts in accounting, business, and other related fields. Recent episodes have focused on non-shareholder victims of corporate misconduct, mandatory arbitration clauses, and litigation financing. Jennings was previously a scholar in residence at Duke Law School and a law clerk to the Hon. Helene N. White of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He practiced law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he handled mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance matters, and at Sullivan & Cromwell, where he practiced in criminal defense and investigations and civil litigation. Jennings earned degrees from Hampden-Sydney College and Duke University School of Law, where he concurrently earned a master’s degree in economics while serving as executive editor of Duke Law Journal. “I started out practicing law in New York City before going to Stanford and am looking forward to coming back to the heart of our nation’s capital markets,” said Jennings. “As a securities scholar, I wanted to be at a place I could have real-world impact, and Brooklyn Law School offers great opportunities for me to do just that.”

Professor Susan N. Herman, President of the ACLU, pays tribute to Rep. John Lewis, who died July 17, 2020. The first time I didn’t meet John Lewis was at a 2010 gala dinner celebrating the 90th anniversary of the ACLU of Massachusetts. As President of the ACLU, I had been invited to present a civil liberties award to Lewis, who had agreed to accept the award and give the keynote address. On the train to Boston for the dinner, I received an email from the affiliate’s executive director, Carol Rose, telling me that Lewis would not be able to attend the dinner after all and asking if I would deliver the keynote speech instead. It was easy enough for me to choose a subject: John Lewis, whose reason for not attending the dinner was that he needed to stay at his post in the House of Representatives to vote for the repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law. Lewis recorded a video apologizing for his absence. The audience not only forgave him, but honored his decision to act rather than speak as a reflection of his abiding commitment to the fight for equality. Like the ACLU, Lewis connected the dots between racial equality and LGBTQ equality: No one should suffer discrimination on the basis of who they are. Just as he had in the 1960s, he devoted himself daily to doing everything he could to make that aspiration a reality. The second time I didn’t meet John Lewis was in the Capitol Building, in February 2013. After attending a meeting on behalf of the ACLU, I observed the crowd gathered for the installation of a statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. I learned later from colleagues that Lewis was not present for that occasion as, again, he had more urgent business. He was across the street at the Supreme Court, watching the oral argument in the case of Shelby County v. Holder. Rather than celebrating a symbol of how far the country had come in the fight against racism, he chose to witness the latest chapter in Alabama’s campaign for retrogression. Alabama was attacking a central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the essential civil rights law he and his colleagues had forged through their persistence and courage—even through their brutal treatment on the now-infamous bridge in Selma, Alabama. As Lewis must have feared, the court chose states’ rights over voting rights and eviscerated that hard-won landmark law. Lewis’s response was to stay at his post in the House and keep fighting. I finally met Lewis quite by accident in a parking lot at the Atlanta airport. I was heading for a flight home after chairing a national ACLU board meeting when a colleague noticed Lewis exiting the building we were about to enter, heading for a car at the curb. Lewis was more than gracious in delaying the final leg of his trip home in order to chat with our group of civil libertarians from around the country, and kindly posed for numerous photos and selfies. On learning about our ACLU connection, he expressed his admiration of our work for civil liberties as we expressed our awe of his own. Lewis never strayed far from the nexus of the fight against injustice — whether in the streets, the courts, or Congress. His absence in one room, I found, guaranteed his presence in another, where a more consequential fight for equality was usually taking place. John Lewis was and will continue to be a force in all of our lives, reminding us that the arc of justice does not bend easily—and doesn’t always stay bent. As ACLU founder Roger Baldwin memorably said, no civil liberties battle ever remains won. We honor John Lewis best not by our words, but by recognizing that awards, obituaries, and commemoration ceremonies can fuel but must not distract from our ongoing actions to preserve and promote equality for all. This post originally ran on the ACLU blog.