The story of Douglas J. Sylvester, dean of Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, comprises brinksmanship, gratefulness and the road nearly missed, but not for lack of trying. Continue reading
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A record drop in scores on the standardized bar exam used in almost every state — forcing thousands of prospective lawyers to retake the test — is drawing scrutiny from law school deans nationwide.
Among their questions are whether the biggest slide in almost 40 years indicates technical flaws in the test or the scoring as well as whether the exam is keeping pace with a rapidly changing curriculum.
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STUDENT: Nora Ali
LAW SCHOOL: Cornell Law School
STATUS: 3L
UNDERGRADUATE: The Johns Hopkins University, B.A. in Public Health Studies
HOME CITY/STATE: Fanwood, New Jersey
Nora Ali, a 3L at Cornell Law, knows the value of finding the right fit in a law school. Not because Cornell helped her secure an interview with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, the prestigious U.S. firm where she will be working after graduation and passing the bar. But because after a near disastrous first semester, Cornell Law enabled her to marshal her considerable intelligence and abilities, and reverse the fall. Continue reading
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Concordia University School of Law
Concordia University School of Law’s request for provisional accreditation, which would allow degree-holders to take the bar exam anywhere in the U.S., will be considered at an American Bar Association meeting almost a month after scheduled commencement ceremonies for the school’s first graduating class.
What the timing means is not yet clear. Concordia had been vying for accreditation before the end of the academic year so graduates would be eligible to take the bar as soon as possible and spokeswoman Madeline Turnock said the university may be able to adjust its calendar so that degrees are conferred after a decision by the Council and the Accreditation Committee of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the government-designated national accrediting agency for law schools. Continue reading
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Eduardo Peñalver’s social activism started long before he led Cornell classmates in their 1993 takeover of the university’s administrative office building. It was an effort to elicit more university support for Hispanic students after racial slurs and a swastika were scrawled across a Hispanic artist’s work on campus.
“Both my parents were involved in the nuclear freeze movement in Seattle,” Peñalver, the dean of Cornell Law School, said in a telephone interview. “I remember them driving the whole family to Bangor, Washington, to march and protest at the nuclear submarine base there. They were real activists, believers in working toward social transformation.” Continue reading
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Tradition called for naming the virus that Dr. Peter Piot identified in 1976 after the Zairian village where it first appeared, but the Belgian doctor feared that would stigmatize both the small community and its inhabitants.
Instead, he named the virus – which causes hemorrhaging and fever – after a river: Ebola. His concern proved prescient. Four decades later, the largest outbreak of Ebola to date has stigmatized entire African countries, with some U.S. politicians advocating travel bans and seeking to quarantine American aid workers who have treated the virus’s victims. Continue reading
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Michael M. Martin’s relationship with Fordham Law School began with a love affair and ended up as a love affair. Here is how Martin, the dean since 2011, explained it:
“I had completed my own education – undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Iowa, then off to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar – and was teaching at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle. That’s when I met the woman to whom I’ve been married for 43 years. Ellen was from New York and we decided to move there. Continue reading
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Student: James Anthony Wolff
Law School: New York Law School
Status: 3L, Evening Division
Undergraduate: The Johns Hopkins University, Peabody Conservatory of Music; B.A. in Music Composition
Home City/State: New York, N.Y.
James Anthony Wolff long ago confessed to being a serial entrepreneur; a 3D and space technologies entrepreneur to be exact. The record of his business dealings in just the past few years attests to his compulsion to start companies around his inventions of new technological processes and systems. Continue reading
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STORIES: Yellow Ribbon Benefits for GI’s; Ex-Marine Advises Lawyers on Counseling Vets; Many Basic Needs for U.S. Veterans Still Unmet, GGU Law Conference Shows
The former general counsel of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, retired Col. Will Gunn, posed two questions to students, academics and others at the Golden Gate University School of Law‘s Second Annual Veterans Law Conference: “Is there anything interesting and meaningful left to do in veteran’s law and policy? Haven’t we solved these issues?”
To many of the veterans in the audience, as well as students who counsel them through Golden Gate’s Veteran’s Legal Advocacy Clinic, the answer to the second question is clearly no. And yes, answering the first question, there is much meaningful work to be done to help the nation’s 19.6 million veterans, many of whom suffer emotional or physical trauma, have experienced joblessness or homelessness and struggle to rejoin civilian communities. Continue reading
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STORIES: Yellow Ribbon Benefits for GI’s; Ex-Marine Advises Lawyers on Counseling Vets; Golden Gate Hosts Veterans Conference
The difference between affording law school and not for U.S. military veterans may be the breadth of “Yellow Ribbon.” That’s the GI Education Enhancement Program designed to pick up on tuition and fees where the post- 9/11 GI Bill leaves off.
“It’s a great program as long as you understand its limitations,” said Susan Hattan, a member of the governmental relations staff at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C. “For example, not every U.S. school participates in Yellow Ribbon. Those that do may limit the number of students they’ll assist. They may limit their contribution, too. And for all participating institutions, Yellow Ribbon assistance is on a first-come, first-served basis regardless of financial need.” Continue reading
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