Campus Features

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Campus Roundup: Concordia Awaits ABA’s OK as 1st Graduation Looms

Posted on: by James Langford

Concordia University School of Law is vying to attain national certification by the end of the 2014-15 academic year so that its first class of students, slated to graduate in the spring, can take the bar exam afterward.

One of just two Idaho law schools, Concordia opened in the fall of 2012. Should it miss its goal for provisional approval from the American Bar Association’s government-designated accrediting agency for law schools, the licensing process for students nearing graduation becomes more complex and potentially more expensive. Continue reading →

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Law Student Limelight: April Bosma, William Mitchell College of Law

Posted on: by Margot Slade

WM MITCHELL APRIL BOSMA2STUDENT NAME:  April Bosma

LAW SCHOOL:  William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn.

STATUS:  2L

UNDERGRADUATE:  University of Northern Iowa – Economics major, Spanish minor

HOME CITY/STATE:  Spirit Lake, Iowa

It seems to have been no contest when it came to choosing the first student to spotlight at William Mitchell College of Law. Faculty members, staff and classmates cited April Bosma for her grit, determination, academic excellence and commitment to serving the community. In her home state of Iowa, she mentored children at a local Boys and Girls Club, and at her law-school’s home base in Minnesota, she’s followed what she calls the “deepest part of my heart” to volunteer at the Secondhand Hounds animal shelter.

Continue reading →

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Dean Limelight: Gary Myers, University of Missouri School of Law

Posted on: by Margot Slade

The job of law dean, as Gary Myers sees it, is mostly about constituencies and collaborative relationships. “I only wish I had realized in advance how many different constituencies we serve beyond the obvious ones – students, faculty, staff and alumni,” Myers, dean of the University of Missouri School of Law, said in an interview.U.MISSOURI.Myers Gary

Every interaction, he said, allows him to move beyond a limited connection to a long-term alliance that will benefit the law school. It’s a multitasking challenge, Myers said, in which he is sometimes “learning by doing.” Continue reading →

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Dean Limelight: University of Miami Law’s Patricia White

Posted on: by James Langford

University of Miami Law Dean Patricia WhiteConsider this: What would Aristotle, the fourth-century Greek philosopher, have in common with a successful 21st-century tax lawyer? If your first guess was “nothing,” you were wrong.

Philosophers and tax attorneys share an ability to think analytically, to read language critically and to grasp its meaning, to build a logical argument and counter an adversary’s.

That’s the premise of Patricia White, dean of the University of Miami School of Law, who studied both fields at the University of Michigan, earning a master’s degree in philosophy and a juris doctorate in 1974. Continue reading →

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Golden Gate Expands Veterans Services Inspired by Diplomat’s Death

Posted on: by James Langford

The killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in 2012 ignited a political firestorm about how well the U.S. protects its personnel, from diplomats to soldiers, serving in dangerous environments abroad.

At Golden Gate University’s law school, it was the genesis of a different movement: supporting veterans who had already completed their military service. The effort begun by Dean Rachel Van Cleave led to the creation of the Veterans Legal Advocacy Center, which brings together a variety of programs to assist veterans pursuing careers in the law and now includes a clinic in which students help veterans obtain health benefits they’re unable to get on their own. Continue reading →

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Law Student Limelight: University of Miami Law’s Noel Pace

Posted on: by Margot Slade

 

University of Miami law student Noel Pace, right, and alum Ryan Foley, left, helped U.S. Army veteran Hosea Smith, center, obtain Social Security disability payments. Smith is a leukemia patient of the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in Miami.

University of Miami law student Noel Pace, right, and alum Ryan Foley, left, helped U.S. Army veteran Hosea Smith, center, obtain Social Security disability payments. Smith is a leukemia patient of the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in Miami.

STUDENT NAME: Noel Christian Pace

LAW SCHOOL: University of Miami School of Law and U.S. Army War College (attending concurrently)

STATUS: J.D. – 3L full-time; Master of Strategic Studies, 2nd Year, part-time

UNDERGRADUATE: B.S. in management, Tulane University, New Orleans; Army ROTC Scholarship: Distinguished Military Graduate

OTHER DEGREE/INSTITUTION: Master’s in health administration, Baylor University, Waco, Texas; Master’s of Business Administration, University of Denver.

HOME CITY/STATE OR COUNTRY: Originally Fayetteville, New York (before being commissioned in the U.S. Army in 1993); now a resident of El Portal, Florida.

Think of Noel Christian Pace as a paladin fighting for health justice in the U.S., particularly for giving military veterans the services they deserve. The image of a knight is more appropriate than many might think: This Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and third-year law student at the University of Miami School of Law is concurrently a second-year master’s student at the U.S. Army War College; an Equal Justice Works/AmeriCorpsJD Veteran’s Rights Fellow with the Dean’s Certificate of Achievement (highest grade) for his work in the University of Miami Health Rights Clinic in 2013-2014, and has a history as a leader with health-care organizations in and out of law school. Continue reading →

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Dean Limelight: Harvard Law’s Martha Minow

Posted on: by Margot Slade

Martha Minow. Photo by Ken Richardson.

Martha Minow can’t say “no” when it comes to working for people on society’s margins – typically members of racial and religious minorities, women, children, people with disabilities. Even when she insists that she knows nothing about the specific subject – refugees, for example, or Kosovo – the Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law of Harvard Law School ends up as the co-chair or co-creator of some targeted, outcomes-based human rights initiative. Continue reading →

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Michigan Law Clinic Students Help Win New Trial in 1996 Killing

Posted on: by James Langford
Innocence Clinic

Michigan Innocence Clinic staff attorney Caitlin Plummer and then-law student A.J. Dixon talk with TV reporters about the Jamie Peterson case. Photo courtesy of University of Michigan Law School.

Almost two decades ago, a 21-year-old high school dropout named Jamie Peterson confessed to the brutal rape and murder of a Michigan grandmother whose body had been discovered in the trunk of her car. He got most of the details wrong. Continue reading →

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Making a Deal: BU Lawyering Lab Lets 1Ls Practice Transactional Law

Posted on: by James Langford

The lobby of the new Sumner Redstone building at Boston University School of Law wraps around the exterior of the old law tower, above. The school will begin teaching classes, including the Lawyering Lab, in the new building this fall.

The scenes are pure fiction: A Navy lawyer played by Tom Cruise provoking Jack Nicholson’s ruthless Marine colonel into self-incrimination in “A Few Good Men.”

Julianna Margulies as Chicago attorney Alice Florrek, “The Good Wife,” discrediting witnesses for the opposition with a few well-chosen questions.

Raymond Burr winning virtually every one of his cases in a 1960s black-and-white portrayal of Perry Mason.

But in these cases, art has manipulated life as well as imitated it. Such dramatizations have given thousands of prospective lawyers their first glimpse into the legal profession, enhancing its allure by what the directors show – the drama – and what they leave out – the hours of research and paperwork. Continue reading →

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BU Law Students Move in to New Building for Fall ’14 Classes

Posted on: by James Langford

Walk through the entrance to the new Sumner M. Redstone building at Boston University law school and you find yourself in a glass-walled atrium, facing a wall of concrete.

That concrete is more than an architectural flourish: It’s the exterior wall of the 17-story tower that has been the law school’s home since the 1960s. This fall, the tower will be closed for renovation as classes shift to the five-story state-of-the-art structure wrapped around a portion of its base, built to complement the design of the original architect, Josep Lluis Sert. Continue reading →

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