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Members of the Class of 2023 may have started their Brooklyn Law School journey on Zoom, but they finished it in real life—and gloriously—with a Commencement Day 2023 celebration that reflected pride in their hard-won accomplishments and a determination to bring about change in the world. After striding across a Brooklyn Academy of Music stage bedecked with vibrant flowers, 379 Brooklyn Law students received their J.D. degrees and 11 were presented their LL.M. degrees as friends, family, peers, and the entire school community cheered them on. New York Attorney General, Hon. Letitia “Tish” James, who was conferred the honorary degree of Juris Doctor Honoris Causa, gave a stirring Commencement address, saluting the achievements of the graduates and appealing to them to be brave and stand up for the rights of the disenfranchised, those who are discriminated against, and those in need. “Show the compassion, empathy, care, and courage to fight for them,” James said. In a time of disruption and polarizing politics, of a global pandemic, of conflicts, and “a more divided country than at any time since the Civil War,” she said, “the law is an incredible power, and those trained to wield it have an awesome responsibility.” She called on the graduates to take action by defending a woman’s right to choose, helping to keep others safe through “common-sense gun safety laws, pushing for more legislation to protect us all,” and to “stand shoulder to shoulder and side by side” with those who experience hate. “That is now your calling, whether you go to a firm or to Legal Aid,” James said. “You’re all connected in this fight together. The challenge is up to you to be committed to justice.” New graduates also took to the stage to speak. Valedictorian Hayley A. Bork ’23 presented a moving address, beginning with reflections on how much the class of 2023 had been through together, from the difficulty of making connections while going to law school remotely during the pandemic to witnessing events such as racial justice protests, the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, and legal rulings and laws that have led to diminishing rights for women, LGBTQ individuals, and immigrants, among others. Yet, Bork said, the graduates have persevered. “We are a group that asks the important questions, and that faces the obstacles,” Bork said. “We came to Brooklyn Law School to make the world a better place.” The valedictorian called on fellow graduates to acknowledge the immense privilege they have. “Try to do some good with it; share it, not with apathy but as someone who cares,” Bork said. To not embrace the status quo, but to act as if it’s possible to transform the world.” Bork turned the stage over to Matthew Lign Fulton ’23, who was elected by fellow grads as student speaker. Fulton began with humor, saying he hadn’t told his parents about the speech, joking that he was “practicing for lawyer confidentiality.” “I told them we were going to a Taylor Swift concert,” Fulton quipped. From the vantage point of someone who “always sat in the back row in class,” Fulton said he observed a lot about his fellow students. He watched with admiration as they progressed from answering professors’ cold calls timidly and coming to class sleepless from working full-time jobs and caring for family to gaining confidence in the classroom, forming study groups and lifelong friendships, volunteering for pro bono projects, organizing to help Ukrainian refugees, and “becoming the counselors you wanted to be.” In Dean Michael T. Cahill’s address, he congratulated the graduates who, he said, “faced unforeseen and unprecedented challenges” and encouraged them to take pride in arriving at this moment. He acknowledged the enormous contributions of the faculty members who are retiring, including professors Lawrence Solan and Beryl Jones-Woodin. In addition, he spoke of two of the graduates’ classmates who tragically passed away: Robert Taronji and Robert Stengel. Taronji was working full time as a courtroom deputy for the Hon. District Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District while simultaneously attending Brooklyn Law. Stengel was presented his J.D. in October 2022, just before he passed away, and will be remembered for his “determination, intellect, aptitude, collegiality, work ethic, and thoughtfulness,” said Cahill. Stengel’s classmate and close friend Priyadarshini Das ’23 spoke of efforts that fellow students had made in honor of Stengel’s memory, including establishing a scholarship for a civil procedure student as well as the Robert Stengel Award for Moot Court competitors. This year’s award was given to Sara Mucha ’23. Multiple alumni played a role in the ceremony, including Frank J. Aquila ’83, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, who extended a warm welcome to all and introduced James. Diane Penneys Edelman ’83, Visiting Director of International Programs, presented the Master of Laws degrees to the 11 graduates. “They have brought experience with legal systems from countries around the world into our classrooms, enriching the educational experience of their classmates with their international perspective,” said Edelman. In his invocation, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik ’86, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, spoke of how we are often identified with titles following our names, and that the title “Juris Doctor” will now follow the names of graduates. “But more important is the decency of your heart, of character over credentials,” Potasnik said, adding that the ancient Greek Olympians were lauded “not as those who came in first but whose torch burned brightly. May your torch burn brightly. And, as we say in Brooklyn, ‘Mazel tov.’ Amen.” Faculty and administrators presenting the J.D. diplomas included Vice Dean Miriam Baer, along with Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship and Professor Jocelyn Simonson and Professor Michael Gerber, who greeted each of the proud graduates and read their names, to the accompaniment of great cheers from the audience. Sixteen of the graduates also had alumni family members at their sides to present them with degrees. In closing, Alumni Association President Deborah Riegel ’93 took the stage to welcome the new grads to Brooklyn Law’s alumni community and encourage them to stay involved. “Remember this feeling and bring it back to the next class and the next generation who will benefit from your experience and support,” Riegel said. View and download photos from Commencement 2023 on Flickr.

How can family law better meet the needs of today’s families? Professor Marsha Garrison was joined by renowned sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin, Benjamin H. Griswold III Professor Emeritus of Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University, and moderator Cynthia Godsoe, Brooklyn Law professor and Director of the Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Law Fellowship and the Marsha Garrison Family Law and Policy Fellowship programs, to discuss how the family-law reforms described in Garrison’s new book can answer that question.    Launching the April 17 discussion, Garrison said that the central purpose of Family Life, Family Law, and Family Justice: Tying the Knot (Routledge, 2023), was to tie the traditional law of private family obligations to the large and growing law regulating government benefits and burdens. “‘Tying the knot,’” she noted, “is not only a long-standing metaphor for marriage, but a good visual symbol for integrating these two areas of law to create a new family law that genuinely works.”   Garrison added that this new, integrated family law must reflect how families themselves have shifted. As compared with earlier families, the 21st-century family is smaller and more geographically dispersed; both parents typically work outside the home. These shifts make it harder for families to provide adequate care to both children and elderly or infirm family members. These basic problems are compounded by an increase in parental separation, she said, which “drives family resources into separate households and divides family capacity to provide care.”   Cherlin, who has studied changes in family structure throughout his career, asked Garrison how the reforms she advocated would apply to the large and growing group of nonmarital cohabitants. He noted that nonmarital children were about three times as likely to see their parents separate as compared to marital children. Garrison agreed that the rise in cohabitation created a range of problems that family law must address, a task made more difficult because cohabitant relationships are neither uniform nor based on publicly shared commitments and expectations. She urged that the classification of cohabitants should therefore reflect the underlying purpose of the relevant law, with laws relating to parental care—child support, residential care, and even Social Security benefits based on parental status—applied uniformly to all parents, including those who never lived together. But, she urged, cohabitants should not be treated as spouses when they separate, given cohabitants’ lack of marital expectations.   Garrison and Cherlin also explored alternatives to divorce adjudication, including Australia’s family relationship centers, which employ counselors and mediators to help couples reach agreements outside of the courtroom. Having “judges determining what should be done comes from the old, fault-based system of divorce,” said Cherlin. “With fault largely removed,” said Garrison, “there’s no reason to persist in using that model, with difficult cases being the exception.”   Godsoe introduced the American class divide in family formation and separation. “It’s a serious problem and a major reason why I wanted to write this book,” said Garrison. “We know that the way families form, live, and dissolve now plays an extraordinarily important role in determining the life prospects of children. And those at the top live very different lives than those at the bottom.” Cherlin agreed and noted that marriage and marital childbearing are now strongly associated with higher education. “It's almost as if we have a two-family system—a family system for the college educated and a family system for the rest,” he said. Cherlin and Garrison agreed that this educational divide enhanced risks to children because nonmarital parents are about three times as likely to separate as marital parents. According to the Fragile Families Study, an important source of information about nonmarital families, only about one-third of nonmarital children saw their parents’ relationship survive for as long as five years.    Garrison and Cherlin also discussed how U.S. programs to reduce children’s poverty and help families compare with those of peer nations. The United States, Garrison and Cherlin agreed, is far behind its peers when it comes to public support for families. “We tend to rely on market, or private, solutions, viewing government programs as a handout. As a result, children's poverty in the United States is much higher and families are more stressed than in any of our peer nations,” Garrison said. However, she added, we are seeing increasing public support in the U.S. across political, religious, and class lines for robust government support for families, such as the child benefit that was launched in 2021 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Garrison urged that child benefit programs were a much more cost-effective method of reducing child poverty than the Earned Income-Tax Credit—which, she pointed out, does not benefit the unemployed and subsidizes low-wage work. Garrison and Cherlin agreed that U.S. improvements in early education were also important. “Early childhood education is crucial to children’s life’s chances and parents’ capacity to work,” Garrison said.   An audience member asked how Garrison defines family justice. “Law is not necessarily just,” Garrison responded.; “It may not be fair, it may not work perfectly, it may not achieve the kind of equitable results that we hope to achieve. So, family justice connotes family laws that do achieve those goals, that provide fair, equitable, economically feasible, and workable solutions to the problems that families actually face.”   In closing, Garrison and Cherlin discussed how family justice could be achieved. Both stressed the need for better partnerships between legislators and experts on the family and family law.    “Building coalitions with advocacy groups is very important because that helps us get the stories of families out there,” Garrison said. She urged that “every journalist begins with an attention-grabbing story” and that stories could make abstract problems come to life. “As family law scholars, we need to put the stories of today’s families before legislators, back them up with the kind of evidence that Andy Cherlin and his colleagues are producing, and try a little harder.”   Watch the discussion here.

With the earliest compliance deadline for New York City’s Climate Mobilization Act (CMA) looming in 2024, Brooklyn Law School held its Second Annual Sustainability & Future Cities Boot Camp, to help educate attorneys and non-attorneys on the new regulations, particularly Local Law 97, and how building owners can comply to avoid potentially hefty fines.   Organized and moderated by Professor of Practice and Adjunct Professor of Law Richard J. Sobelsohn ’98, the April 20 event's keynote speaker was Camille Joseph Varlack ’03, chief of staff to New York City Mayor Eric L. Adams. The Adams administration has pushed forward a climate change agenda that has "created real results" as the city aims to get to "net zero" emission levels by 2050, Varlack said.   "We have launched the Leading the Charge campaign, which is a commitment to build every new school to be 100 percent electric and retrofitting 100 existing schools in low-income, Black and brown communities, historically impacted by respiratory illness," Varlack said. "We have invested $70 million in the Clean Heat for All program to decarbonize NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority] campuses. We have broken ground on a $1.6 billion capital [pollution prevention] project for the Gowanus Canal. And we are creating a road map to citywide composting by 2024."   Since 70 percent of New York City’s emissions comes from its buildings, a pivotal portion of the CMA is Local Law 97, which impacts the city’s 42,000 commercial and residential buildings that are 25,000 square feet or greater in size and have the highest carbon emission levels. The first compliance period for building owners to retrofit their buildings and slash emissions is from 2024 to 2029 and will affect 20 percent of targeted buildings. Even stricter caps on emissions, required by 2030, will affect the other 80 percent. The city is working with building owners to ensure compliance through efforts such as the NYC Accelerator, which provides free technical assistance on Local Law 97.   "We don’t want to fine building owners unless we have to," Varlack said. "We don't want your money. We want your carbon."   Compliance with Local Law 97   The panel featured Laura Popa, deputy commissioner of sustainability for the New York City Department of Buildings, and two attorneys working in sustainable real estate issues: Tyng Patka, partner at Adler & Stachenfeld, and William McCracken, partner at Ganfer Shore Leeds & Zauderer LLP. Compliance to avoid potential penalties, was the hottest topic of the evening, and appropriately so.   "Local Law 97 was intentionally drafted to have very, very huge fines," Popa said. "It's the difference between your emissions limit and your actual emissions times $268. And there are buildings that are potentially facing millions and millions of dollars in fines if they don't reduce their emissions. But as Camille had said, the city's not interested in getting their money through fines. We want building owners to pay for the retrofits."   On May 1, 2025, the city will get compliance reports for affected buildings. The city's Department of Buildings is developing rules to assess if owners have made a “good faith effort” to take significant action to reduce emissions. "It will be super clear and there will be metrics attached," Popa said.   Compliance Levels Vary   McCracken said the new regulations pose unique challenges for his co-op and condo board clients, because they are owner operated. Many clients have worked to comply, but others are procrastinating.   "A big part of my job for the last three or four years has been just educating co-op boards and condo boards as to what Local Law 97 is, why it's important, and why they need to comply," McCracken said. "And it's not just the technical stuff, it's the social issues. Even though it is complicated and tricky for co-ops and condos, they generally do have money or access to funds, and they hire people like us to find it."   On the commercial property side, Class A properties such as the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center were on top of Local Law 97 from the very beginning, but they only represent a small slice of the market, Patka said. Class B and Class C building owners have been slower to act because they have been wrestling with, first, the Housing Stability Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which significantly changed the rent stabilization laws, and then pandemic impacts.   "Only around the beginning of last year did people start really paying attention," Patka said."And early last year, I told clients, 'You still have time.' But now we're eight months away from compliance and I am still encountering owners that are unfamiliar with Local Law 97. And it's concerning."   Since the CMA passed with such fanfare, Patka finds it unlikely that the city will back down from imposing the fines. Some building owners are crunching the numbers to determine if the fines are cheaper than the retrofitting, which may cost millions of dollars more.   McCracken said attorneys are eager for the city to clarify what it means by "good faith efforts," but in the meantime, he is encouraging clients to start retrofitting.   "I haven't had any experience with any building, any client, any property owner that starts doing this stuff and doesn't see the wisdom and benefit of it, just on its own terms, leaving aside compliance, leaving aside potential fines," McCracken said. "These are things that pay for themselves, become cheaper to run over the long term, make your property more resilient and sustainable, and increase the prestige of your building."   Funding Sustainability   McCracken said funding Local Law 97 compliance will be the toughest nut to crack and that Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing is "great, but we haven’t found a vehicle for property owners to access that capital in an efficient way yet."  The federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes $370 billion in clean energy and climate investments over the next decade, is also a game changer, but it’s unclear how that financing will get to property owners.   Popa said the city is banking on the IRA money too.   "There is money that Con Ed has and has paid for supported compliance with Local Law 97 and NYSERDA [New York State Energy Research and Development Authority] as well, so that money existed apart from the IRA funding," Popa said. "But we're obviously very much counting on significant IRA funding to help with this going forward."   For the 2030 compliance deadlines, the city wants to incentivize early electrification of businesses, Popa said, adding that an Urban Green Council study found that a "significant number" of buildings could be electrified without overwhelming the grid, as some feared. The city is also looking at renewable energy credits (RECs) and possibly taking their purchase into account for emissions.   The Boot Camp was sponsored by Ganfer Shore Leeds & Zauderer LLP.  

The Law School announces three associate dean appointments, which went into effect July 1, bringing new faces to positions that are designed to support students and their educational experience in a multitude of ways. The new roles include an exciting transition for Associate Dean Karen Porter, who has served as the inaugural Arthur Pinto & Stephen Bohlen Associate Dean of Inclusion & Diversity since her appointment in January 2020. Now, Porter has been named the Associate Dean for Academic and Student Success, another new dean-level role that will focus on supporting students and leading schoolwide efforts to guide students through their Law School experience. While academic success is not a new focus for the Law School, this is the first time an associate dean has been dedicated to the effort.   “We want to have the success of our students at the center of everything we do,” Porter said. “It’s not just academic success in the sense of what and how students are doing in the classroom, but really a more holistic approach to student success that includes broader aspects of what it means to succeed in law school and in the profession. Over the course of their studies, students often change their goals and adjust their expectations about what it means to carve out a space for themselves in the legal profession. And that can be really challenging, particularly for first-generation students who might not have a clear idea of what a career path looks like.”  Even before Porter officially started her new role, she helped enlist Linda Feldman, Associate Professor of Legal Writing Emeritus, who is serving as the Director of Bar Preparation and Adjunct Professor of Law. Feldman, a pioneering force in academic success programming at Brooklyn Law, launched a new bar prep offering this summer that has included popular faculty-led workshops on topics such as Constitutional Law with Professor Alice Ristroph and Contracts with Professor Michael Gerber. Other pivotal members of the team are Assistant Professors of Academic Success Cherie N. Brown and Flora Midwood, who also serves as the Assistant Director of the Academic Success Program, and Assistant Professor of Legal Writing Meg Holzer.  Stepping in to fill Porter’s role of Associate Dean of Inclusion & Diversity is Professor Joy Kanwar, who teaches legal writing courses at Brooklyn Law School.  Her recent scholarship explores questions about inclusion and exclusion in immigration and citizenship law through historical and narrative lenses.    Kanwar said she is excited to follow in the footsteps of Porter, who did a “phenomenal” job and enlisted the community to take ownership in the school’s diversity and inclusion efforts.   “I'm just generally motivated by community building and by making the student experience as positive as it can be for everybody,” Kanwar said. “The norm of the law school experience, or what we assume law school is going to be, is not very inclusive of all communities. So, my overall goal is to make the school more welcoming—even incrementally—and building a sense of belonging among our community.”  Some of that sense of community “and the grace we gave each other,” was lost during the COVID-19 pandemic and one of her initial goals is to lead efforts to restore it, Kanwar said.   “My experience has always been that the students care a lot about our community, and I want us to be able to do well by our students and by our staff and by our faculty,” Kanwar said.   As part of those efforts, she has organized a Town Hall on July 10 to discuss the impact of the recent Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action in higher education. Kanwar is also working with Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law Susan Herman to bring greater awareness to Native American and indigenous law within the school’s curriculum in the upcoming year.  Also taking on a new role is Professor Susan Hazeldean, who was named the new Associate Dean of Experiential Education, a leadership position long held by Professor Stacy Caplow, who launched the school’s first in-house clinic in 1976 and expanded it over nearly five decades. (Caplow will continue to teach classes).   Hazeldean, who is the founding director of the LGBTQ Advocacy Clinic, credits Caplow for building Brooklyn Law School’s clinical education program into one that is nationally renowned and said she is “honored” and “humbled” to step into a role that is so important to the Law School community.   “Our students are passionate and dedicated; they want a chance to build their practical skills while they're still in law school, which is what experiential education is all about,” Hazeldean said. “Our in-house clinical program is second to none, and I feel so lucky to work with such a diverse and amazing range of talented scholars and teachers every day. We also have wonderful adjunct professors who contribute to our program in a number of ways, both in our skills courses, and also in teaching externships and hybrid clinics that, again, give students a chance to go out into our local community and build their skills.”  One immediate plan she has is to expand the clinics program with a new offering. Professor Aissatou Barry, who was newly hired as Assistant Professor, will be starting a new civil clinic for eviction prevention.   “It’s going to be an incredible opportunity for our students,” Hazeldean said. “Professor Barry is doing cutting-edge work protecting the basic rights of New Yorkers to safe, secure housing.” 

By Teresa Novellino Photo by Conor Sullivan Caption: Brooklyn Law’s new Director of International Program Diane Penneys Edelman ’83, left, with Afghan scholar Nargis Baran. Just two years ago, Nargis Baran was employed as a Legal Specialist for the largest international bank in Afghanistan, working and advocating for the rule of law and democracy, and spending time with friends and family. All of that changed on Aug. 15, 2021, the day the Taliban took over Kabul, toppling the government. “The day started as a normal one, but it totally changed to the worst day of my life,” Baran said in an interview at Brooklyn Law School’s Feil Hall, where she now lives with her family. “Before that, I was optimistic that Kabul, the capital, would never fall to the Taliban -- that it was not possible.” The takeover by the Taliban, known for banning women from the workplace, would have rendered meaningless the legal education and career Baran had worked so hard for. But fortunately, her legal career is back on track. After escaping Afghanistan and living in a refugee camp in Abu Dhabi for 18 months, Baran and her family made it to the United States in April, aided by a national network of diplomats, professors, and the deans of three local law schools. Cardozo School of Law offered her a fellowship as a research scholar, Brooklyn Law held open an apartment for Baran and her family, and Fordham contributed funding and support for the rescue plan. Coincidentally, Brooklyn Law’s new Director of International Program Diane Penneys Edelman ’83 recently got involved with the American Bar Association Afghan Legal Professionals Scholarship & Mentoring Pilot Program, which helps Afghan lawyers, especially female lawyers, get to the United States. She plans to have Baran meet her LL.M. students when they arrive at Brooklyn Law School later this month. “I hope that Nargis will be able to tell her story, so the students can see the importance of international law, which is what brought Nargis and her family here,” Edelman said. Baran, who hopes to teach commercial law, has to pass the bar in order to practice law in the United States, but she is in a good location: New York is one of the few jurisdictions that permit someone who has an LL.M. to become admitted to the Bar to practice law, Edelman said. Not Allowed to Work Baran’s journey was difficult and at times terrifying. Weeks before the U.S. troops’ withdrawal date of Aug. 31, 2021, the Taliban started assuming power. “At 6 p.m. each day, there was news that another province collapsed, and the Taliban had taken it over. This happened in a very short period of time,” Baran said. “Each day, two or three provinces were taken.” Then, on Aug. 15, the Taliban took over Kabul. Baran had been working from home that morning until her mother rushed in and summoned her to the balcony, where they could view people frantically running through the streets. “The electricity was out, so I went onto my mobile to see what was happening and checked Facebook. Every page was saying the Taliban took over Kabul,” she said. “I thought, maybe this page is fake and they're just spreading this wrong news. Let's go to another page. But each page said Kabul is now under the control of the Taliban.” For five or six hours, she and her mom sat in stunned silence, unable to believe that the government had been overthrown. At the end of the day, her male boss called to say that the collapsed government had upended the bank’s operations, and she could not go back to work. “There is no office,” he told Baran. “After investing all of our lives and time on education and just trying to do something for this country, there was no difference between us [as women] and someone who was illiterate and sitting at home,” Baran said. “We were not allowed to work.” More immediately, though, was the issue of survival. If there were a heat map of Taliban danger levels, Baran was in the red zone, with each of her life achievements more incendiary than the last. She was a single female, living independently with only another female, her mom, in an apartment. She was a member of the Afghanistan bar, working full-time at an international bank. She was U.S.-educated, having received an LL.M. degree from Ohio Northern University in Democratic Governance and the Rule of Law in 2018. Perhaps most dangerous of all, Baran was a member of the Afghan-U.S. Law Alumni Association, a group of 120 U.S.-educated legal professionals in high-ranking positions, assisting the U.S. State Department by training judges and prosecutors in modern law, and advocating for democracy, an agenda that the Taliban sharply opposed. Fearful of going out of the house without a male accompanying them, Baran and her mom paid neighbors to buy groceries for them. They stayed away from the windows and did not turn on the TV, afraid that they would be heard. A former Ohio Northern University law professor, messaged Baran to tell her not to panic, and to hide all documentation indicating that she had been in the United States, and about her education. Escape Route In the meantime, a U.S. colleague working for a Department of State funded project arranged for 10 scholars and their families, including Baran and hers, to leave Afghanistan ahead of Aug. 31. One early morning, Baran received a call to show up in a few hours with her mother at a location where she would be picked up and taken to Kabul International Airport. But the Taliban were blocking traffic, and after walking four hours, the violence that Baran and her mother witnessed made it seem too dangerous to continue. “When we gathered, we saw that everyone was trying to escape the Taliban government and leave Afghanistan; whether they are documented, undocumented, it didn’t matter,” she said. “At the airport, everyone was just trying to get onto the plane and the Taliban were shooting in every direction.” She and her mother went back to their apartment. On Sept. 5, she married her husband, but the family continued to live mostly in hiding. On Oct. 15, Professor Hall sent Baran a message that she and her family should go to another Afghanistan province, Mazar-i-Sharif, to get a flight out of the country. They were evacuated on Oct. 18 to Abu Dhabi, where they lived for a year and a half in a refugee camp, all three in just one room. “There was no education, there was no work, and we could not leave the camp,” Baran said. After 18 months, her P1 case was approved and her visa came through at last, and Professor Hall told her that a New York law school would send her an offer to join as a scholar, and Cardozo informed her of the fellowship. “I really appreciate how amazing and wonderful people have been. The schools waited so long for me, and Brooklyn and Cardozo arranged everything for me,” Baran said. “For instance, with Brooklyn Law School, I know how expensive it is to rent a place, but they kept this apartment open for me for more than one year. I can't say in words how grateful I am.”

By Julia Rafferty Brooklyn Law's annual Service Day, a signature event hosted by the Public Service Law Center, saw a historic turnout this year, with 120 incoming 1Ls and returning student leaders volunteering across nine distinct community organizations, getting to know each other along the way. Students rolled up their sleeves for the Aug. 25 event, eager to make an impact at partnering organizations including three Brooklyn and Manhattan food pantries: CHiPS in Park Slope, God’s Love We Deliver in SoHo, and The Campaign Against Hunger in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Other volunteers embraced the rainy Friday for hands-on work with Big Reuse at the Red Hook Compost Site and street tree cleanup at Borough Park Library. Joining the students was new President and Joseph Crea Dean David D. Meyer, who led a team of 20 students at the Prospect Park Alliance, contributing to the preservation work the alliance does for this cherished backyard for Brooklyn residents. One volunteer group directed their efforts towards the One Love Community Fridge in Clinton Hill, a Brooklyn non-profit established in 2020 by Asmeret Berhe-Lumax. The organization focuses on increasing fresh food access through public refrigerators and health education. Group leader Alessandra Antuzzi ’25, said the students worked for three hours packaging 5,400 fresh eggs and preparing more than 500 sandwiches destined for the three One Love fridges and 25 other sites throughout Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. Antuzzi said her volunteering experience illuminated the scarcity of fresh food access in the city and the diverse sources of donations, ranging from restaurants to local businesses and grocery stores. "It’s so easy to get bogged down and say policy is never going to change, but One Love was a reminder there is something you can do every day for your community." said Antuzzi. For Antuzzi, her dedication to service fuels her aspirations for a legal career, connecting her to the community she hopes to serve one day. “Your community is what helps you and sustains you as a lawyer,” said Antuzzi. “Every lawyer has their community to thank, so it’s important to me to give back when possible.” Edward Jordan '24, a 4P student, led another volunteer group to Borough Park Library. Jordan, raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, attributes his passion for service to his mom's involvement in their church community. Jordan said Service Day was an avenue to communicate to incoming 1Ls his passion for service and the value Brooklyn Law places on community. “It was a powerful experience to engage with the 1Ls and be of service to Brooklyn, the environment, and the community alongside them,” said Jordan. “There are many ways we can impact our community as lawyers, but there are also many ways we can have an impact through service- Service Day absolutely solidified that for me.” Service Day also provided students with valuable opportunities for engagement and facilitated connections within the Law School itself. Leyna Reynolds '24, said she formed lasting friendships through the event during her 1L year and was determined to return as a leader. “I have an appreciation for the event since I made so many friends, and friends that I wouldn’t have met otherwise but I still am close with now,” said Reynolds. “It was nice that the 1Ls in my group had so many questions and it ended up being a great Q&A session where we got to pass on some guidance to ease their fears.” Other incoming 1Ls agreed with Reynolds and said Service Day was a vital platform for building peer connections during orientation. Lucy Gottfried ’26 said that as an undergraduate during the pandemic, she missed out on such opportunities, making Service Day an even more meaningful experience. “I really enjoyed meeting new people and I got to extend my circle before classes started,” said Gottfried. “My group leader gave us a ton of advice and tips while we volunteered together, and it was just nice to have an in-person event where I could meet people.” Austen Fisher '24, while volunteering at CHiPS food kitchen, said he reconnected with why he pursued law school three years ago. He recognized Service Day as a unique chance to step back and engage with the community as an active member, not just a law student. “When you’re wearing the lawyer hat sometimes it feels very distanced because it’s a privileged position to be in,” said Fisher. “So being able to literally go to the back, be in the kitchen and remember how impactful it can be to give back was valuable.” Valerie Hanna '26, another participating 1L, highlighted Service Day's significance in her orientation experience and its role in setting the tone for her first year. In fact, Hanna is planning to return to independently volunteer at her Service Day site, The Campaign Against Hunger. She said the event was an important part of her early journey at Brooklyn Law. “At Brooklyn Law, I’m not just a student, I’m also a member of the larger Brooklyn community, so I appreciate that this event was part of our orientation,” said Hanna. “It was a great way to end the week and a wonderful start to the new year.”

By Teresa Novellino In 2020, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) replaced the often-criticized North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but three years later, has the new treaty achieved its goals of creating a more level playing field among its three signatory nations, fostering innovation, and incorporating stronger labor and environmental standards? Scholars, practitioners, and policy experts who gathered at Brooklyn Law School on Oct. 6 for the Brooklyn Law School Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law symposium sought to answer that question by dissecting the treaty’s impact in four areas: labor; energy and climate policy; gender, race, and trade policy; and dispute resolution. In discussing its impact on labor, the scholars on a morning panel that was moderated by Professor Alberto Rodriguez gave the treaty a mixed review. On the positive side, there was more than $1.5 trillion dollars in trade between the three trading partners last year, said panelist Diego Marroquin Bitar, a senior research analyst in global economy and development at The Brookings Institution. Canadian exports to Mexico and the United States grew 43 percent, Mexican exports to the United States and Canada rose 22 percent, while U.S. exports to Mexico and Canada rose 28 percent, he added. “The three countries together account for almost a third of global GDP, and trade alone supports almost 10 million jobs across the region,” Bitar said. Politically, the treaty garnered bipartisan support, with over 90 percent of Republican and Democrat lawmakers in Congress approving its passage, compared to 53 percent for NAFTA. Unions also approve of the treaty, which “is not something we’ve seen before,” and in Mexico, a new labor center was created with 21 outlets around the country to address labor disputes, Bitar added. Still, there are problems with the treaty, speakers noted. One of them is that it was crafted under the Trump administration when “there was this huge emphasis on trade deficits, and [the motivation was] how do we close our markets to redress what was perceived as unfair trade deficits using the rules of trade to justify that?” said panelist Desirée LeClercq, an assistant professor of law at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Under the Biden administration, trade policy is designed to be worker-centric, but that goal is difficult to achieve in the current way USMCA is being implemented, LeClercq said. “The Biden administration must make a choice: Is it going to help workers in Mexico by for instance, augmenting its technical assistance and training programs, much like we saw in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement? Or does it want to punish workers by leaving them voiceless, opening the door to retaliation, and ultimately failing to give them a meaningful seat at the table?” asked LeClercq, whose research places marginalized workers at the center of global and economic policies. Much discussion centered on the treaty’s “Rapid Response Labor Mechanism,” often referred to as the RRL, which allows the U.S. government to crack down on individual factories in Mexico — by, for example, suspending tariff exemptions for their products – if they violate Mexican labor law. The treaty does not allow similar crackdowns on U.S. manufacturers unless a facility has been subjected to an enforced order of the National Labor Relations Board, which can take years to happen, creating an asymmetric power structure, LeClercq said. Inu Manak, a fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that the treaty was put together quickly and without a lot of transparency during the Trump administration and then was inherited to implement after the Biden administration took over. “Because it was put together really fast, there was a lot of language, that is probably not meant to be the way it is, and there are a lot of lawyers in this room, who know that there could be some additional scrubbing of this that would have made it a little better and given it more clarity, and that just really didn’t happen,” Manak said. One issue that the treaty does not address is Mexico’s employment realities, Bitar said. He explained that there is a formal economic and employment sector, primarily located in the northern part of Mexico, and a larger informal one, based more in the central and southern parts of the country. In the formal sector, Mexican workers can form unions that are subject to minimum wage laws, gain access to pensions, health insurance, and sometimes even housing, Bitar said. Such firms are larger, more productive, more innovative, and have established relationships with North American supply chains, allowing them to benefit from USMCA. But only about 10 percent of Mexico’s workers are in such formal employment. The informal sector, which represents more than half of the nation’s economy, includes the other 90 percent of workers, who are mostly self-employed, or working for family-run businesses. These businesses are much less productive and innovative and offer less job security to workers. There is greater incentive for businesses to be part of the informal economy because workers can be hired and fired more easily, are paid less, and employers don’t have to contribute to social welfare programs. “Without addressing this divide, USMCA won't get us very far,” Bitar said. “This device needs to be addressed through a fiscal reform, to programs to help SMEs (small and midsize enterprises) in southern and central states to fully connect with the supply chains. And that's not something that USMCA can do on its own, so we need to really temper our expectations.” Dean’s Research Scholar and Professor Robin Effron, in introducing the symposium, said its theme was inspired by a desire to shed light on a large yet overlooked area of trade. “Understandably, there's tremendous interest in hosting events, and writing about Asia, in particular, China, and there is huge interest in the growing markets and trade with the continent of Africa, and the usual discussions about Europe,” Effron said. “But I felt like, for whatever reason, we know the least about our trading partners who are right to our north and ourselves and make up just an enormous portion of U.S. trade.”

On March 23, the Brooklyn Law School community, colleagues, students past and present, former clients, and friends came together virtually for the Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Forum to celebrate the life, work, and indomitable spirit of the late Professor Minna Kotkin, who died on September 30, 2021. Prof. Kotkin had been a tireless Sparer Committee member since the program’s founding in 1985. Kotkin, a trailblazer in employment law and sexual harassment law, joined the faculty in 1984. She created and taught the Federal Litigation Clinic and the Employment Law Clinic. She was a dynamic teacher of employment law, N.Y. civil procedure, administrative law, civil rights law, and interviewing and counseling. The Forum opened with a slideshow of photos of Kotkin at all stages of her career along with written remembrances and the moving Maya Angelou poem “When Great Trees Fall.” The Good Fight  Dean Michael Cahill welcomed the group, likening Kotkin and the clinical faculty “as field generals in the battle for a more just and fair society, both leading others and participating in the effort themselves. Minna was involved in many important victories; to be sure, the battles are not over, nor won, but Minna’s fighting spirit lives on and will be carried forward by the many she led and inspired. She benefitted our community and the people on whose behalf she fought.”  Kotkin’s longtime clinical colleague, Associate Dean of Experiential Education & Professor of Law Stacy Caplow, offered a testimonial that touched on the many facets of Kotkin that made her so respected and beloved. “Minna’s life is not measured by the cases she won or the many speeches she gave or articles she wrote, or number of students she taught,” Caplow said, “but she will be remembered as the singular, charismatic, no-nonsense, truth-telling woman, teacher, lawyer, scholar that she was, who could cut to the core of the issue while enjoying every minute of the party.” Friend and colleague Elizabeth Schneider, Rose L. Hoffer Professor of Law, said, “Minna was a total force of nature in every aspect of her work. Her loss brings so much sadness, but also so much joy at how lucky we were to know her and work with her over many years.” Leading Clinical Education with Fierceness and Humor Kotkin’s importance as an innovative and inspiring clinical educator was touched on by those like pioneering clinician Elliott Milstein, Professor of Law Emeritus and former Dean of American University Washington College of Law. She was, he said, “part of the ‘Inventing Generation of Teachers.’ In her constant search to be better, she jumped in and became central to reflecting our goals of developing our students’ social justice skills and legal knowledge, and designing programs to reflect those goals, while always challenging her own assumptions.” Kotkin’s mentorship through the clinics inspired many of the testimonials. Professor Carolyn Grose ’94 of Mitchell Hamline School of Law, who had been both Kotkin’s student and a teaching assistant in the Federal Litigation Clinic, said that experience moved her to follow the clinical education path in her own career, all with a high level of expectation and a lot of humor. “She was always looking for people to broaden the conversation that might change her mind,” Grose said. “To encourage and amplify new voices that might encourage you to spit out your coffee and say, as she often did, with a laugh, ‘What the ‘f’ are you talking about?’” Others, like Kotkin’s former TA’s Jamie Levitt ’21 and Peter Gallagher ’20, recalled how in 2020, in response to the nationwide shutdown of businesses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Kotkin launched the Pandemic Employment Relief Clinic (PERC), which rallied hundreds of law students to help nearly 1,000 New York workers who had been displaced. “In the midst of tragedy and chaos, Minna just came in and said, ‘Look, I have a vision and I want you all to come along with me,’” said Gallagher. “She came in with joy, inspiration, and leadership.” Leadership and Scholarship in Employment Law “Minna exhibited the power of the clinician-scholar model in academia,” said Ann C. McGinley, former Brooklyn Law School professor and current William S. Boyd Professor of Law at the Boyd School of Law of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Speaking of Kotkin’s research and scholarship on the problems arising from secret and confidential settlements generated by mandatory arbitration, McGinley said, “Invisible cases were made visible through her study.” Added Jamie Levitt, “She’s somewhere celebrating the passage of the Ending of Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act. Her testimony was brilliant.”    The program began and ended with speakers who had benefitted from Kotkin’s mentorship while students. Professor Peter Margulies, now a clinical teacher at Roger Williams Law School, described Minna’s exacting supervision when he was her law student intern at NY Lawyers for the Public Interest, 40 years ago. Current Brooklyn Law School student Megan Cooney ’22, her most recent mentee, described a similar relationship.   Lureen McNeil, a client of the Employment Law Clinic who worked closely with Kotkin and Levitt, witnessed the power of Kotkin’s advocacy firsthand at a series of mediation sessions, at the end of which Minna secured a meaningful settlement in her employment discrimination case. “When I walked into that clinic, they believed in me, understood me, and fought for me,” said McNeil. “The work that you do, the lives that you touch. You understand the pain people go through in a process like this. Professor Kotkin had a very profound impact on my life.” That Laugh, That Voice Recounted time and again during the Forum, and through dozens of remembrances and testimonials from others gathered online, were Kotkin’s unique raspy voice and bold laugh, as well as her gift of friendship; her generosity; her rejection of academic pretension; her sense of fun; her support and fight for the vulnerable; and her love for her students, her partner Deena, her sons Eli and Sam, her dogs, a dry Martini with olives, and, of course, a good argument.  “It’s an unfathomable loss. There was so much more to know,” said Elliott Milstein. “But although her voice may be stilled, what we learned from her is instilled in all of us.” 

More than 450 Brooklyn Law School alumni, faculty, trustees, and guests gathered at the Mandarin Oriental in New York City on February 7 for the annual Alumni Association Luncheon. Three alumni, all founding partners at their firms, were honored for their outstanding contributions to the Law School community and the legal profession: Harriet Newman Cohen ’74, of Cohen Rabin Stine Schumann, and David A. Berger ’89, of Allegaert Berger & Vogel received the Alumni of the Year awards; and Jason Jia ’11, of Jia Law Group, was honored as a Rising Star. As a special surprise, Board of Trustees Chairman Emeritus Stuart Subotnick was presented with his portrait in recognition of his leadership and service. (See story below.) Alumni Association President Valerie Fitch ’88 kicked off the program by announcing the formation of the association’s executive committee, which will create new opportunities for alumni involvement. She also introduced president-elect Deborah E. Riegel ’93, a partner at Rosenberg & Estis, who was featured in the Fall 2018 Brooklyn Law Notes as one of the Law School’s “Titans of Real Estate.” Cohen was introduced by her daughter, Patricia Epstein Putney ’89, who spoke movingly of the challenges her mother faced as a divorced single parent, attending law school and launching a legal career in her late 30s. “This wonderful law school was the beginning of my second life,” said Cohen in accepting the award. “I didn't know whether I was going to be able to do this…but I needed to do something more. Brooklyn Law School was the more.” Cohen cited the Hon. I. Leo Glasser ’48, U.S. District Court Judge of the Eastern District of New York and former dean of the Law School, as an instrumental teacher, mentor, and friend, who was present to share in the honor.  Associate Dean Stacy Caplow introduced Jia, who thanked Oberweger for his mentorship. As a student with English as a second language, he attributed much of his success in law school and his legal career to retired legal writing professor Barbara Gartner, in whose name he has established a scholarship “so even more students from diverse backgrounds can unlock opportunities and potential, some day paying it forward as well.” Professor Michael Gerber introduced Berger, who he considered “born into the Brooklyn Law School family.” His mother, Professor Margaret Berger, was a member of the faculty from 1973 to 2008, and Berger and his brother, Joshua, created a scholarship in her honor. He praised Berger’s commitment to mentoring law school students and noted that nearly a third of his firm’s attorneys are Law School alumni. “I am committed to Brooklyn Law School not only because of what it has done for me, but because of the values and first-rate education it continues to provide,” said Berger. “Here today are many leading lights of the profession…Brooklyn Law School prepared them for the critical thinking and wherewithal that are at the heart of what they do today.” “A strong alumni network depends not only on having successful alumni, which we do, but on having tight connections between those alumni,” said Dean Michael T. Cahill. “Every time one of you visits or teaches a class, comes to a student event, answers a phone call or an email from one of our current students, offers them a job, or points someone to an opportunity, you are paying it forward to those who are going to follow you.” View the Flickr gallery. Chairman Emeritus Stuart Subotnick ’68 Honored with Portrait for Lifetime Service A surprise was in store for Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees Stuart Subotnick ’68 at this year’s Alumni Luncheon, when the Law School unveiled a framed portrait in recognition of his outstanding leadership and philanthropy. The portrait was presented at the start of the Luncheon by current Chairman Frank Aquila ’83, Dean Michael T. Cahill, and Alumni Association President Valerie Fitch ’88. It will hang in the Law School in the event space that bears his name, the Subotnick Center, along with those of past deans and other luminaries of the Law School. Subotnick has served on the Law School’s board of trustees for over 30 years, 16 of thom as its chairman. In that time, he helped steer projects that led the school into the 21st century, including the renovation and expansion of the main Law School building at 250 Joralemon Street, the construction of Feil Hall, and the opening of the clinical, legal writing, and administrative offices at 111 Livingston Street. He stepped down as chairman in 2019, but remains on the board as chairman emeritus. “I hate to get ‘taken,’ but by this school, take me anytime you want,” said Subotnick upon the unveiling of his portrait. “All of us owe our lives and what became of our lives to this institution.” Subotnick has also led the Law School community in philanthropy. In addition to the Subotnick Center, he has endowed the Anita and Stuart Subotnick Professor of Law chair at the Law School, currently held by Professor Anita Bernstein, as well as two scholarships. “Those amazingly generous monetary gifts mask the true contributions that Stu Subotnick has made to Brooklyn Law School,” said Aquila. “Stu has generously given of his time and talent over many decades, serving with four deans and three interim deans. Through all his efforts, Stu has made Brooklyn Law School a far, far better law school. Clearly, such a legacy as Stu’s needs to be commemorated in a special way.” In the 2018 Commencement ceremony, Subotnick was presented with a special honorary degree to celebrate his 50th reunion year recognizing his “many decades of outstanding leadership, dedication, vision, and unparalleled service and support to Brooklyn Law School.”  Subotnick is the president and chief executive officer of Metromedia Company. His career with the company began in 1967, and he served as its general partner and executive vice president from 1986 to 2010. In that role, he pioneered forms of leveraged buyout financing. He is a member of the boards of directors of several companies and nonprofit organizations including Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc., the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, the Central Park Conservancy, and Park East Synagogue. A Brooklyn native, he grew up subsidized housing in Williamsburg. View the Flickr gallery.  

Prominent legal scholars and practitioners Frank Pasquale, Wilfred U. Codrington III, and Vijay Raghavan bring a wealth of expertise in law and policy Brooklyn Law School welcomed three new full-time faculty members this fall: Professors Frank Pasquale, Wilfred U. Codrington III, and Vijay Raghavan. They join a faculty that is already nationally recognized for scholarly and teaching excellence. “Our new faculty members bring a wealth of expertise, experience, and new ideas to the Law School,” said Dean Michael T. Cahill. “As our curriculum evolves to keep pace with the latest developments in technology, law, and policy, their contributions will be invaluable. We also look forward to their collaboration with our stellar existing group of scholars.” Frank Pasquale Pasquale previously was the Piper & Marbury Professor of Law at the University of Maryland. He is a noted expert on the law of artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms, and machine learning. He was a visiting professor at Brooklyn Law School in fall 2019. Pasquale is a prolific and nationally regarded scholar, whose work focuses on how information is used across a number of areas, including health law, commerce, and tech. His wide-ranging expertise encompasses the study of the rapidity of technological advances and the unintended consequences of the interaction of privacy law, intellectual property, and antitrust laws, as well as the power of private sector intermediaries to influence healthcare and education finance policy. His book, The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information (Harvard University Press 2015), has been recognized internationally as a landmark study on how “Big Data” affects our lives. The Black Box Society develops a social theory of reputation, search, and finance, while promoting pragmatic reforms to improve the information economy. His forthcoming book, New Laws of Robotics (Harvard University Press 2020), and a volume on AI he co-edited, The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI (Oxford University Press 2020), will both be released this year. “Having spent the fall with Brooklyn Law’s outstanding students and faculty, I am thrilled to join a law school with such a strong commitment to research and community service,” said Pasquale. “As AI becomes an increasingly important concern of lawyers, I look forward to being part of the policy conversation in New York City, where some of the leading work is now being done.” Pasquale has advised business and government leaders in the health care, internet, and finance industries, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. House Judiciary and Energy & Commerce Committees, the Senate Banking Committee, the Federal Trade Commission, and directorates-general of the European Commission. He also has advised officials in Canada and the United Kingdom on law and technology policy. He presently chairs the Subcommittee on Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security, part of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, where he is serving a four-year term. He is one of the leaders of a global movement for “algorithmic accountability.” In media and communication studies, he has developed a comprehensive legal analysis of barriers to, and opportunities for, regulation of internet platforms. In privacy law and surveillance, his work is among the leading research on regulation of algorithmic ranking, scoring, and sorting systems, including credit scoring and threat scoring. Pasquale is an Affiliate Fellow at Yale University's Information Society Project and a member of the American Law Institute. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.Phil. from Oxford University, and a B.A., summa cum laude, from Harvard University. Pasquale’s move was noted by Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports as one of the top 10 lateral moves of the year. It is the fourth year Brooklyn Law School’s lateral hires have been on the list. Wilfred U. Codrington III Codrington comes to Brooklyn Law School from NYU School of Law, where he was the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Fellow and Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. At the Center, he focused on voting and election security, constitutional reform, and the rule of law. He taught graduate and undergraduate courses at NYU Wagner School of Public Service on topics of law, public policy, and politics. He also had served as a Fieldwork Supervisor for the Brennan Center Advocacy Clinic, a clinic devoted to teaching students public policy through real world legal reform campaigns that impact the laws of democracy and the regulation of election contests. At Brooklyn Law School, Codrington teaches Constitutional Law and Election Law. He is the co-author of the forthcoming book, The People’s Constitution: 200 Years, 27 Amendments, and the Promise of a More Perfect Union (The New Press 2021), that examines the history of constitutional amendments and the tension between the overall progressive arc of constitutional change and the conservative grip on the broader conversation about the Constitution. Among his recent articles are “So Goes the Nation: What the American West is Telling us about How We’ll Choose the President in 2020,” Columbia Law Review Online (forthcoming 2020); and “The Benefits of Equity in the Constitutional Quest for Equality,” 43 N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change 105 (2019). “I felt immediately at home at Brooklyn Law School,” Codrington said. “The faculty are dynamic and intellectually curious people who really want to do good for the world. The student body is a great group of diverse, public-interest-minded individuals. In addition to teaching at the Law School, I hope to continue working with the Brennan Center in some capacity, to influence the public debate on election laws, civil rights, and constitutional matters.” Previously, Codrington was an associate at DLA Piper in the litigation, government investigations, and regulatory practices, where he participated in a variety of pro bono projects on behalf of individual clients, minority communities, and nonprofit organizations. He also clerked for Hon. Deborah Anne Batts, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, and served as a staffer for U.S. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. Codrington holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, an M.P.A. from University of Pennsylvania, and an A.B. with honors from Brown University. Vijay Raghavan Raghavan joined the Law School after a decade in the public sector, recently serving as Deputy Director of the Division of Financial Institutions with the Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation. His scholarship focuses on consumer finance. His current research interests include regulatory design in consumer finance, defending interventions in consumer financial markets on distributional grounds, measuring risk in consumer financial markets, and emerging doctrinal issues in consumer law. He also explores in his work whether large debt write-offs in the emerging recession may be justified on efficiency grounds, in addition to moral grounds. Raghavan previously served as an Assistant Attorney General with the Consumer Fraud Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, where he investigated and litigated violations of state and federal consumer protection laws. Before that, he completed a two-year public service fellowship with Prairie State Legal Services, where he created a clinic to provide legal assistance for low-income individuals with tax problems. Raghavan began his career as a tax associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. “I was drawn to Brooklyn Law School by its stellar and kind faculty,” said Raghavan. “I am eager to engage with the faculty and students, and hope to lean on my public sector experience in scholarship as well as in the classroom.” He holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.

Over spring break, Brooklyn Law Students for the Public Interest (BLSPI) organized a trip for six students who were hosted by the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office, and worked in support of criminal defense advocacy. Participants were (L to R): Salome Freire ’25 (LL.M.); Zara Khan ’26; Alessandra Moreno ’27; Julianna Berger ’27; Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos J. Martinez; Maia Reeb ’27; Samantha Dumas ’26; and Miami-Dade Public Defender Training and Professionalism Director James DuBray.   With the support of the Public Service Law Center and several Brooklyn Law School pro bono project leaders, more than 40 students embarked on a meaningful spring break this year to devote their week off to pro bono legal opportunities in Florida, Puerto Rico, and Long Island.   Student leaders for each pro bono project identified host organizations and worked with the supervising attorneys to develop an impactful short-term project during the March 10-14 break, according to Public Service Law Center Executive Director Amy Hsieh ’11.  Brooklyn Law Students for the Public Interest (BLSPI) co-funded a program called BLAST, or Brooklyn Law Alternative Spring Break Trip, in two different locations in Florida. In Jacksonville, five students were hosted by Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and helped clients to draft wills and advance directives. In Miami, six students were hosted by the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office and worked in support of criminal defense advocacy.  One of the participants in Miami was first-year student Maia Reeb ’27, who enjoyed her Criminal Law class last semester and was interested in learning more about public defense and how courts operate in states other than New York. Throughout the week, the team witnessed several criminal trials, an experience that was both sobering and inspiring, Reeb said.   “Florida has a very punitive criminal legal system, so it was interesting to see the differences between there and New York,” Reeb said. “For example, one day we watched part of a jury selection for a death penalty case, which was very eye-opening. Overall, it was disheartening to witness the perpetuation of mass incarceration in action, as all the defendants we saw throughout the week were people of color, but it was very inspiring to see the public defenders at work. You could feel their passion as they advocated for their clients, which is important since the stakes are so high.”  Dario Arroyo ’27, who joined the pro bono program because he wanted to gain as much experience as possible in different areas of law, joined the Jacksonville group.     “The [Jacksonville Area] Legal Aid team in particular was incredibly helpful and supportive, and the clients themselves were gracious and very engaged with the clinic,” Arroyo said. “It was very professionally satisfying for clients to leave the clinic with completed wills and advanced directives. Altogether, we successfully completed those documents for about 60 clients across a few days.”  The Jacksonville program was new this year. “BLSPI is so glad to continue our partnership with the Miami Public Defender’s Office, and we look forward to continuing to work with Jacksonville Area Legal Aid in the future,” said Maureen Maher-Patenaude ’26, BLAST’s Pro Bono Project Leader.   Nine students took part in the PR Legal Brigade, a pro bono project developed by the school’s Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA), through which they were hosted by the Inter American University of Puerto Rico’s School of Law (UIPR) in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They helped to conduct intakes in domestic violence and sexual abuse cases and observed court proceedings on relevant cases. One of the participants was Jimena Pinzón ’26, LALSA’s community action chair, who said that while the PR Legal Brigade trip has taken place in previous years, it was the first time that students worked with UIPR-Law School and its clinics and they were excited to join local professors, students, and lawyers in their efforts.    “The Brigade is a great way for students to connect to their Latinidad, while also providing legal services to underserved communities,” Pinzón said. The group was invited to the Centro Judicial de San Juan, a building that houses all the courts in San Juan, to observe hearings and trials in the gender violence unit and had the opportunity to speak to judges and attorneys who helped them learn about the cases and answered their questions.   “It was also incredibly meaningful to talk to clients about their situations. The team did a variety of client-intake interviews that gave us a look into the social, racial, and economic structures of the island and the role that we as Latine attorneys play in these clients’ lives and in shaping the systems around them,” Pinzón said. It wasn’t all work and no play, however.   “Of course, the food, the beach, and the beauty of the island were highlights as well,” Pinzón added.  Another large group of students stayed closer to Brooklyn, heading to Long Island for their public service work. In Hempstead, N.Y., 23 students supported attorneys at CARECEN to develop Know Your Rights training on immigration and support immigration cases.  One of the students in that group was Julienne Martinez-Alvarez ’27, who wanted to seize the opportunity to learn about immigration law early on as a 1L, and experience face-to-face interactions with clients. The highlights of the experience included learning from the passionate attorneys at CARECEN and collaborating with other students.  “The program with CARECEN gave me a better understanding of the challenges undocumented immigrants face and broadened my perspective on the current legal landscape,” Martinez-Alvarez said. “It also inspired me to keep seeking opportunities to help immigrants through legal support in the future. It was so rewarding to speak with real clients, and feel like I was contributing, even if just in a small way, to their immigration journey.” For more information about Brooklyn Law School Pro Bono Projects, visit the Public Service Law Center’s website. 

Robert Corn-Revere and Dr. Mary Anne Franks pose for a photo before the start of a discussion of her new book.   A new book by Dr. Mary Anne Franks titled Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment, inspired a lively discussion among scholars who delved into the First Amendment, its role in protecting free speech, and how far that protection extends at the Trager Colloquium Thursday night.  The colloquium was presented as part of the David G. Trager Public Policy Lecture Series, which honors the late Hon. David G. Trager, Senior Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, who served as the dean of Brooklyn Law School from 1983 to 1993.    “We're so delighted that we can reinaugurate the Trager series for the first time since Covid, and are so grateful for the continued support of the many supporters and benefactors of the Trager Fund who make this possible,” Dean David Meyer said, specifically thanking Roberta Weisbrod, Trager’s wife, who attended the program. “What also makes this event very special is its especially compelling and timely topic, which is free speech and the role of the First Amendment in protecting speech. That, of course, has always been a vexing, complex topic, but never more so than today.”   The evening featured a powerhouse group of First Amendment scholars. Franks is the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor in Intellectual Property, Technology, and Civil Rights Law at George Washington University Law School, and the president and legislative and tech policy director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. Joining Franks as a featured speaker was First Amendment advocate and scholar Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Additional discussants included Ron Collins, former Harold S. Shefelman Scholar, University of Washington Law School, and current editor in chief of the blog First Amendment News; and Sarah C. Haan, Class of 1958 Uncas and Anne McThenia Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law, who will be joining Brooklyn Law School in July. The program was moderated by the school’s own constitutional law scholars, Stanley A. August Professor of Law William Araiza and Professor Joel Gora, who worked as an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union for almost a decade.    In the book, Franks makes the argument that the First Amendment has limitations and that there are examples throughout history that show it has done little to protect dissenting speech made by marginalized members of American society. She distinguishes these examples of unprotected “fearless speech,” from the harms caused by “reckless speech,” which has been protected.    One of the examples Franks cites of fearless speech is Ida B. Wells, an anti-lynching activist and journalist who wrote an article about a man who was lynched, highlighting the racism behind it. “What she was saying, quite openly, was that the ‘proof’ that was presented that this Black person was being a predator towards white women, actually showed there was a consensual relationship between the races, and that was the thing that white men really could not stand,” Franks said. After the piece was published, Wells’ printing press was burned down by a white mob. “No First Amendment rights. Nothing is happening in that moment that allowed her to use the law to help her,” Franks said. She also asserted that suffragists, civil rights protesters, and indigenous Americans, among others, were throughout history not protected by the First Amendment.  As an example of reckless speech that causes harm, Franks cited the 1977 case National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie which involved a neo-Nazi group whose permit to march through the village of Skokie, Illinois, home to Holocaust survivors, was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court based on free speech. “And these neo-Nazis don't just want to come and say, ‘Hey, we have some ideas.’ They don't. They want to march in the middle of this town, and they want to wear SS-like uniforms, and they want to have swastikas, and they want to terrorize that specific population,” Franks said. “If we're saying that we are going to have a government that will not prohibit this kind of speech, that doesn't mean we have to promote it. And what is it other than promotion to basically have the city shut down and dedicate its police forces for the day to protect this group and their speech?”   While she does not advocate simply banning speech “that we don’t like,” Franks says she is an advocate for asking principled questions about whether speech can cause harm, and making “fair and principled decisions about what needs to be regulated.”   In response to the book, Corn-Revere said he agreed with Franks on some points, including that there are examples of fearless speech that were not protected, but he had several criticisms, including Frank’s assertion that the First Amendment was, from the start and continues to be, a “tool of white supremacy.”    After the (Justice Louis) Brandeis concurrence in the 1927 U.S. Supreme Court case Whitney v. California, courts began to apply the First Amendment, and “then it was the disenfranchised groups that were the first to be protected,” Corn-Revere said. There were multiple Supreme Court cases that provide evidence of that, including Stromberg v. California, which upheld the free speech rights of a Young Communist League member who had been prosecuted in California for flying a red flag in favor of communism, and Near v. Minnesota, in which the court ruled that prior restraints on publication violated the First Amendment.  Corn-Revere said he also took issue with certain concepts in the book he called fallacies, such as “to protect speech is to endorse it” and “bad people defend bad speech,” which implies guilt by association.   “The third problem I have with the book is that it makes the claim that there's no such thing as a cancel culture,” Corn-Revere said. “Now this is dismissed in the book as cultural handwringing or, quote, a shell game designed to distract from the Republicans neo-Confederate agenda by hyper-focusing on the supposedly intolerant acts of private individuals while overlooking the systemic governmental restrictions on the speech of everyone else.”  Cancel culture does exist and has been politicized, he contended. “It comes from both the left and the right, and it is wrong as a violation of a culture of free expression,” Corn-Revere said.    In response to the book, Haan said she sees parallels with what Franks writes about and issues that relate to business law, which she will teach at Brooklyn Law.   “You’re trying to refocus us on power, something that has not been centered in First Amendment law in the past, so that the core contribution of this book is the idea that we can and should distinguish between reckless speech and fearless speech,” Haan said. “So reckless speech is speech that supports existing power hierarchies. It serves power, whereas fearless speech challenges power. And we might think of it as the actual practice of democracy, when you’re challenging power.”  Collins, who fielded questions from the audience and shared questions the two key speakers asked each other, said he was happy that Franks had written the book, even if he had disagreements with it.   “The First Amendment, at the end of the day, is better off when we have, if you will, a variety of voices,” he said.  Photos of the event are here. 

Brooklyn Law School’s Rising Star of 2026 Ankit Kapoor ’18 broke into the field of matrimonial law as if he already owned it. He walked into a Manhattan boutique law firm, was offered an associate position, and two successful years later achieved his goal of “getting his name on the door” as a partner at Cohen Stine Kapoor.  Yet Kapoor’s career as a matrimonial lawyer was far from pre-ordained. After college, he spent seven years as an NYPD police officer, serving Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant and East New York precincts.   “I wanted more, and I thought I could do more with my life,” Kapoor said. “So, I went from law enforcement, enforcing the law, to interpreting the law as an attorney, from cop to counselor.”   From Cop to Counselor  After Law School, Kapoor worked for the City of New York as assistant corporation counsel for a year but decided to shift to matrimonial law as a practical, recession-proof practice where his people skills would shine. Through a connection with a judge, Kapoor scheduled a meeting with Harriet Newman-Cohen ’74, who had no open position but agreed to provide advice. Not long into the meeting, Newman Cohen, called in her daughter and law partner, Martha “Marti” Cohen Stine, for what turned into an extensive interview with the recent grad. “He was very charismatic, very smart, and very eager. And at the end of the conversation, I said to him, ‘So, Ankit. What's your goal?’ He said, ‘My goal is to have my name on the door.’ I looked at Marty, and she looked at me, and the two of us said in unison, ‘You’re hired.’” That was 2019, and when the mother-and-daughter team formed a new firm, Cohen Stine Kapoor. After the pandemic in 2020, Kapoor joined as partner.  What Kapoor did not anticipate at first was how much his police background, where “every day, every call was different” would inform his matrimonial law career.   “Most of my cases are high conflict. People call in a time of distress, and my training and experience as a police officer has helped me handle that in a more calm and empathetic manner,” Kapoor said. When cases go to court, his ability to focus and take control of tricky situations kicks in.  “I love trying cases because it allows me to get the best outcome for my client. When I have a witness on the stand, whether it’s for direct questioning or cross-examination, nothing else in the world matters but me and that witness.” The “command voice” that Kapoor learned to use as a police officer elevates his courtroom elocution, he says, “whether it's arguing a motion, cross-examining a witness, or during a closing argument.”  Outside the courtroom, the former officer’s friendly and authoritative social media presence has prompted strangers to greet him in restaurants and summoned clients to his door. On his Instagram reels [handle: @newyorkdivorcelawyer], his posts are helpful and matter-of-fact. “Your conversations with ChatGPT and other AI bots are Not Privileged!” he warns in one. “Does cheating affect divorce?” “Maybe,” he explains in another.  The Journey to Brooklyn Law School  Before enrolling at Brooklyn Law School, Kapoor used every available moment to study for the LSAT, even doing a practice exam while guarding a prisoner recovering at a hospital. After choosing Brooklyn Law School for its focus on practical experience, he enrolled in the Criminal Defense & Advocacy Clinic, completed a Kings County District Attorney’s Office externship, and served as a summer associate at a midsize Manhattan law firm.   “I didn't want to be stuck inside a classroom for the next three to four years,” Kapoor said. “I wanted to be in clinics. I wanted to be in the courtroom. I wanted to do externships and internships.”   After class, Kapoor’s world was quite different from most of his peers. He took the train or drove to Bedford-Stuyvesant to work the midnight shift of a job where there was no such thing as a “routine day” and where 99 percent of the 911 calls he responded to were from people in distress. Each night, the spinning wheel of misfortune would land on a different emergency: armed robberies, homicides, people with weapons, domestic disputes, missing children, car accidents, and more. “And then I would go home, sleep during the day, and wake up at a time where I had time to read before the next class. So that's how my Mondays to Thursdays went as a police officer in the NYPD, at least for the first few years of law school,” he recalled.  One of Kapoor’s professors who remembers him as a standout is Hon. Timothy Driscoll, a judge in the State Supreme Court’s Commercial Division in Nassau County and an adjunct at the Law School for 28 years.   “Ankit was my student in first year fundamentals of legal drafting, which is what we call the legal writing class then,” Driscoll said. “From the very beginning, he represented the best of what the evening division has to offer at Brooklyn Law School, which are students who come from all walks of life, who are looking to better themselves, not just in their own professions, but also to make the world a little bit better.”   Kapoor expressed gratitude to his mentors, partners, and Brooklyn Law School for his career success and the Rising Star title.   “My experience at Brooklyn Law School was transformative. It really turned a boy into a man, and it helped me see the world in a different way,” he said. “It gave me something that I’ll be able to use for the rest of my life.”