A COMMUNITY OF JUSTICE

SPRING 2010

CUNY
Law’s Clinics
Advocating Justice, Leading Clinical Education
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 contents Spring 2010

4 6 12

features departments
4 STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Cesar Vargas
6 HAYWOOD BURNS CHAIR IN CIVIL RIGHTS:
Dean’s Letter 2
Dean Spade News Brief 3
cover story Alumni News 24
Faculty Notes 27
8 C UNY LAW’S CLINICS
Legal Education for Social Justice
Editor and Articles Author
10 Immigrant & Refugee Rights Clinic Vivian Todini
Director of Communications
11 Helping Haitians in Need vivian.todini@mail.law.cuny.edu

12 Criminal Defense Clinic editorial assistant

Dana Ramos
14 Community & Economic Development Clinic Executive Assistant to
Dean Michelle J. Anderson
16 International Women’s Human Rights Clinic Art Director
Hope Forstenzer
17 Mediation Clinic Q&A
hopejf@gmail.com
18 Equality Concentration ALUMNI NEWS
Compiled by Ansley Davenport
20 Health Law Concentration Coordinator of Alumni Affairs

21 Economic Justice Project FACULTY NOTES

Compiled by Cindy Rodriguez
22 Elder Law Clinic Communications and Development
Assistant
Photography ©Arpi pap
Arpi Pap
ArpiPap@paphoto.net
On the Cover: From left, Director of the Immigrant & Refugee Rights Clinic (IRRC)
Ramzi Kassem, IRRC Social Work Supervisor and Adjunct Professor Martha Garcia, Copy Editor
IRRC Instructor Liliana Yanez, and CUNY Law Director of Immigrant Initiatives
Alizabeth Newman. Victoria Beliveau
de an’s • letter
Dean Michelle J. Anderson
Letter from the Dean
Dear Friends,
I am pleased to share this special issue of CUNY Law
Magazine, which spotlights the Law School’s signature clinical
program. Nationally recognized as one of the strongest pro-
grams in the country, our clinic is widely respected for being
both innovative and on the vanguard of clinical education.
Our approach is different. We do not wait for the third
year to introduce students to the practice of lawyering. Practice
experience begins on day one. Our amazing faculty—whom
the Princeton Review ranks among the 10 best law faculties in
the country—integrate theory and practice in both doctrinal
classes and lawyering seminars. Our curriculum is modeled on
the belief that abstract knowledge cannot be separated from
practical skills and professional experience.
In recognition of our approach, the Carnegie Foundation’s
report “Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of
Law” praised CUNY Law, stating: “We believe legal education
requires not simply more additions, but a truly integrative
approach in order to provide students with a broad-based yet
coherent beginning for their legal careers. It is the systematic
effort to do this in their curriculum that makes programs
like that at CUNY’s law school so noteworthy.”
Our small lawyering seminars in the first and second
years provide students with the grounding they need to
2 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu
begin supervised live client practice in their third years. Our
experiential approach engages students more deeply in their
learning and prepares them for an outstanding clinical ex-
perience. Students enjoy a clinic faculty-to-student ratio of 8
to 1 and have unparalleled interactions with their professors.
They routinely report that their clinical experiences are the
highlight of their time at CUNY Law.
As you’ll see on the following pages, each of our clinics has
a distinct area of focus, with passionate, excellent professors
and engaged students dedicated to carrying out “Law in the
Service of Human Needs.” Each clinic dedicates itself to helping
low-income clients and communities access much-needed legal
assistance that otherwise would not be available. Our clinical
approach teaches students how to look critically and thought-
fully at the ways in which our justice system neglects the salient
intersections of race, poverty, sexual orientation, and gender,
among other issues. Our goal is justice for all communities.
Our Immigrant & Refugee Rights Clinic represents individu-
als and groups of immigrants asserting their right to exist in the
U.S. without fear, exploitation, or subordination. The clinic also
works on civil liberties issues in military detention cases. Our
Elder Law Clinic helps protect the elderly from exploitation and
abuse and helps families plan for the future. Our Criminal De-
fense Clinic defends the rights of those caught up in the criminal
justice system. Through CUNY Law’s extensive network of col-
leagues in the field, our Equality Concentration and Health Law
Concentration provide students with in-depth placements in
public interest settings. Students in the Community & Economic
Development Clinic assist nonprofits and small businesses in
assessing and establishing viable governance structures. Our
Mediation Clinic teaches students another way of lawyering that
often enhances outcomes for the parties involved and increases
their satisfaction with the process. And our International Wom-
en’s Human Rights Clinic uses human rights law to advocate for
justice nationally and abroad.
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division
at the U.S. Department of Justice Thomas Perez visited the
Law School recently and reflected on the first time he came
to CUNY Law many years ago. Having just been appointed
director of clinical programs at the University of Maryland
School of Law, the first thing he did was travel to CUNY so
that he could “learn from the masters of clinical education.”
We are so proud of our clinical program. I am sure you
are, too.
Yours,
Michelle J. Anderson
Dean and Professor of Law

CUNY Law Students
Meet with Civil Rights
Leader and Advocate
In a special visit with CUNY Law students, Thomas Perez, assis-
tant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S.
Department of Justice, talked emphatically about the need for
public interest lawyers. “The need is greater than ever,” he said.
“I especially wanted to visit CUNY Law because of its commit-
ment to public service.” According to the National Association
for Law Placement Directory, CUNY Law sends a higher share
of its students into public interest and public service law prac-
tice than any other law school in the nation. In his meeting
with students, Perez praised CUNY Law’s professors, telling
students they were learning from among the best in the coun-
try, and that the skills they gain from CUNY Law will serve
them well as they pursue their law careers.
“I’ve always loved what I do, and it doesn’t
feel like work. Civil rights is the unfinished
business of America, and it’s something
that we need to address every day.”
Perez, whose visit was hosted by CUNY Law’s Career
Planning Office, encouraged students to think hard about
their future careers and the mark they want to leave on the
world. “Here’s your homework,” he said. “Take a piece of
paper and write your obituary. What do you want it to say?
What kind of legacy do you want to leave?” He advised the
students to “take educated risks in pursuit of what you want
to do.” And, he reminded them, “always use your moral com-
pass.” Perez told the students if they love what they do each
day, they will always be motivated.
He also challenged the students to be proactive in pursuit
of their careers, but not at the expense of others. “I was always
taught not to bring up the ladder behind me,” he said, referring
to the values imparted by his family. “My parents raised me to
think about the community and community service.”
Perez has spent more than two decades in state and
federal government service, including being the first Latino
ever elected to the Montgomery County Council in Maryland
and serving as the council’s president in 2005. He was deputy
news • brief
Thomas Perez
assistant attorney general for civil rights under Attorney
General Janet Reno, and special counsel to the late Senator
Edward Kennedy, including being Kennedy’s principal advi-
sor on civil rights, criminal justice, and constitutional issues.
For the final two years of the Clinton administration, Perez
served as the director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. At the state level,
Perez served as the secretary of Maryland’s Department of
Labor, Licensing, and Regulation, where he was the principal
architect on lending and foreclosure reforms.
“I’ve always loved what I do, and it doesn’t feel like work,”
he said. “Civil rights is the unfinished business of America, and
it’s something that we need to address every day.”
This is Perez’s second visit to CUNY Law School. His first
was in 2001, when he was named clinic director at the Uni-
versity of Maryland School of Law. “When I joined Maryland
School of Law, one of the first things I did was meet with clinic
faculty at CUNY Law, because I knew that in order to develop
an excellent program for Maryland, I first needed to learn and
hear from the masters of clinical education.”
CUNY Law consistently ranks among the top 10 law
schools in the country in clinical training.
The Civil Rights Division, said Perez, is tackling a variety of
issues such as foreclosure and voting rights. “It was a privilege
to have him back at the Law School,” said Dean Michelle J.
Anderson. “He inspired the students and spoke of issues that
are at the heart of CUNY Law’s mission.” ••
SPRING 2010 3
 student spotlight

Cesar Vargas
C
esar Vargas is considering two potential career paths: He could become an officer in the Marines as a military lawyer or an
assistant district attorney. Vargas, who is finishing up his second year at CUNY Law, acknowledges that on the surface, those
career choices may not appear to align with CUNY Law’s values. But, he said, these careers are very much in sync with the CUNY
Law mission.
“It’s all about creating access to justice,” he said. As a military lawyer in the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps, Vargas
said, he would work toward ensuring fair treatment of troops, and he would defend individuals in courts-martial. He also said
he would ensure that generals follow international human rights treaties. “The military is the ultimate in public service,” he said.
“Plus, troops need representation, and the generals need oversight.”
Vargas is torn, however, because he has an equally strong calling to be a prosecutor for the State. “I wouldn’t be a tradi-
tional prosecutor,” he said. “I would work toward changing the system and the prosecutorial model. We need more emphasis
on treatment, prevention, and alternatives to incarceration,” he explained. “For instance, when we take the accused out of
the community and isolate and marginalize him in prison, it often doesn’t work.” Vargas advocates a more holistic approach
involving the community.
“The criminal justice system has to use the strength of the community to prevent a path to crime,” he said. “This is especially
important in the case of our youth. We need greater community links and intervention, so we don’t have to keep prosecuting
youths whose lives are changed in a minute because of a misdemeanor or a felony.”
A need to diversify the profession is another reason that a prosecutor career holds Vargas’s interest. “We need more prosecu-
tors who come from the community,” he said. “It makes a big difference for people in the community to know that the people
who prosecute them actually understand them and aren’t detached from their communities.”
In keeping with a community prevention model, Vargas said he intends to join the Community & Economic Development
Clinic next year. His goal is to help address the legal needs of local small businesses, including helping them incorporate.
“Small businesses are the commercial lifeline of the community. If we help local entrepreneurs flourish, it will help the com-
mercial welfare of the entire community, making it possible for business owners to hire people from within their community,”
he said, adding, “Jobs are a crime prevention strategy. I love CUNY because it gives you a rich and wide array of possibilities to
pursue justice.”
Vargas said that other students share his interest, and, as a result, he has started the Prosecutor Law Students Association.
Vargas recently interned at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. “It was an opportunity to get real legal experience by draft-
ing legal documents and assisting senior ADAs with trials,” he said. “It was also an opportunity to see success stories of prison
alternative programs.”
Vargas cites his Mexican roots as his pull toward social justice. “In Mexico, it’s all about ‘whoever has money has justice,’ ” he
said. “It’s actually not so different from here. The thing I love about CUNY Law is that we want to make sure that race or class
doesn’t dictate who gets access to justice.” ••

SPRING 2010 5

2009–2010 Haywood Burns Chair in Civil Rights Dean Spade
QUESTION AND ANSWER
Dean Spade
Dean Spade, CUNY Law’s 2009–2010 Haywood Burns Chair
in Civil Rights, is a leading voice on the intersections of
gender identity, poverty, and discrimination. Recognized for
his activism and academic contributions, Spade was a Wil-
liams Institute Law Teaching Fellow at UCLA Law School
and Harvard Law School, teaching classes related to sexual
orientation and gender identity law and law and social move-
ments. Currently on the faculty of Seattle University School
of Law, Spade recently received a Dukeminier Award for his
article “Documenting Gender,” and was selected to give the
2009–2010 James A. Thomas Lecture at Yale.
What inspires you to work in civil rights?
Like many people, I think I first got politicized by my own experi-
ences, especially my experiences of growing up on welfare and
then becoming aware of welfare politics broadly during the mid-
1990s attacks on welfare. My politics expanded from there, espe-
cially as I developed an analysis of how the legal reforms pushed
by social movements often fail to address the needs of people fac-
ing the worst harms. When I got involved in lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender politics in the 1990s, I became aware of how the
mainstream “gay rights” frame marginalizes poor people, people
of color, trans people, immigrants, people with disabilities, and
other highly vulnerable queer and trans people. I wanted to get
involved in building resistance that addressed the needs, includ-
ing legal needs, of those facing multiple vectors of vulnerability.
6 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu
What led you to establish the
Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP)?
I founded SRLP in 2002 to respond to the enormous unmet
legal needs of low-income people and people of color facing
gender identity and expression discrimination. I knew from
my own experiences and from those I was close to that trans
and gender nonconforming people face high levels of police
harassment and arrest, homelessness and barriers to social
services, imprisonment, employment discrimination, evic-
tion, deportation, harm in juvenile justice and foster care
systems, and sexual violence.
The fact that most of the institutions of social control
where poor people and people of color are overrepresented
(shelters, jails, prisons, group homes, detention centers, hospi-
tals, etc.) are sex-segregated and refuse to recognize nontradi-
tional gender identities means that trans and gender noncon-
forming people face both heightened vulnerability to violence
and exclusion from services. Further, the increasing trend of
excluding trans-related health care from Medicaid and other
public insurance programs and the increasing difficulties faced
by trans people whose identity documents do not accurately
represent them in the context of increased identity surveil-
lance after 9/11 result in significant obstacles to basic survival
needs. SRLP’s mission is to work on these issues by providing
legal services to people in need, changing major laws and poli-
cies, and building racial and economic justice–focused trans
resistance that demands not just formal legal rights, but also
redistribution of wealth and life chances.
What distinguishes CUNY Law from other
law schools at which you’ve taught?
CUNY is an exceptionally exciting place to teach because of the
mission and because the students come to the classroom with a
much broader range of life experiences and work experiences, as
well as a deep commitment to social justice. I find the classroom
conversation to be very sophisticated and dynamic because
the students are so passionate about examining injustice and
strategizing resistance, and they bring so much of themselves to
the dialogue.
What do you hope students will learn from your class?
I hope that students in my Poverty Law class will learn to ana-
lyze problems of disparity from an intersectional perspective,
considering questions of wealth distribution and redistribution
through the lenses of feminist critique, critical race studies,
queer theory, critical disabilities studies, and women of color
feminism. Through this process, I aim to give them a chance
to think about the limits of legal reform for addressing wealth
disparity, as well as the opportunities for lawyers to be part of
resistance efforts whose demands exceed what law can offer. ••
The Haywood Burns
Chair in Civil Rights at
CUNY School of Law
The Haywood Burns Chair in Civil Rights is a visiting position at
CUNY Law, which enables a succession of extraordinary civil
rights attorneys to provide students with an unparalleled oppor-
tunity to learn from leaders in the field.
The Chair is named for Haywood Burns, the first African-
American dean of CUNY Law and of any New York law school.
During his deanship, he led CUNY Law to American Bar As-
sociation accreditation. Haywood Burns
A founder of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, Burns began his civil rights career at age 15 when he helped integrate
the swimming pool in Peekskill, New York. As a law student at Yale, he participated in the 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi.
He became assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and later served as general counsel to Martin Lu-
ther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign.
Burns died tragically in an automobile accident in 1996 when he was in South Africa participating in a world conference on
post-apartheid democratic reform. CUNY Law named the Chair in his honor to keep his legacy alive and to bear witness to the
sacrifices and successes that he made, in both life and death, in the struggle for racial justice worldwide. ••

CUNY Law’s Haywood Burns Chairs
1997–98 The Hon. Nathaniel R. Jones, Judge of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and former General Counsel of the Na-
tional Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
1998–99 Theodore M. Shaw, Associate Director-Counsel of the
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.
1999–2000 William L. Robinson, former Dean of the District of
Columbia School of Law and former Executive Director of the
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
2000 The Hon. Robert L. Carter, Judge of the U.S. District Court,
Southern District, and close working associate of U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, when both were part of the
famed NAACP legal team that won Brown v. Board of Education.
2001 Judge Albie Sachs of the Constitutional Court of South
Africa and former African National Congress leader in the
struggle for democracy in South Africa.
2001–02 Professor Eric Yamamoto of the William S. Richardson
School of Law at the University of Hawaii, civil rights scholar,
and litigator of cases on reparations for Asian-Americans in-
terned during the Second World War.
2002–03 Professor Camilo Perez Bustillo, formerly of the Instituto
Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores in Monterrey, Mexico,
founder of Multicultural Education, Training, and Advocacy
(META), and scholar/activist on international issues of poverty
and self-determination.
2003–04 Susan Jones, Clinical Professor at the George Washing-
ton University Law School and expert on microenterprise and
economic rights.
2004–05 Ida Castro, Commissioner of the New Jersey State
Department of Personnel and former Chair of the U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission.
2005–06 Professor Paula Johnson of the Syracuse University
College of Law, former Co-president of the Society of American
Law Teachers (SALT), a national organization of nearly 800 law
professors; she is widely known for her work to advance scholar-
ship in the area of race, gender, and the law.
2006–07 Professor Anthony Paul Farley of Boston College Law School,
an expert on constitutional law, criminal procedure, and legal
theory, and an Affiliated Professor with the Graduate Department of
Sociology and African & African Diaspora Studies at Boston College.
2007–08 Richard Abel, Michael J. Connell Professor of Law
at UCLA and Faculty Coordinator for the public interest law
program; he participated in the founding of the Conference on
Critical Legal Studies in 1977, and helped organize the Confer-
ence’s meeting titled Law and Racism: The Sounds of Silence.
2008–09 Professor Margaret Montoya of the University of New
Mexico Law School, the first Hispanic woman accepted at Harvard
Law School, and an expert on race, ethnicity, gender, and language;
she received the Harvard University Frederick Sheldon Traveling
Fellowship and runs a television roundtable on a local PBS station
discussing the news in New Mexico.

SPRING 2010 7
IMMIGRANT&REFUGEERIGHTSHELPINGHAITIANSI
DEFENSECLINICCOMMUNITY&ECONOMICDEVELO

CUNY
Law’s Clinics:
Legal Education for Social Justice
INTERNATIONALWOMEN’SHUMANRIGHTSMEDIATIO
EQUALITYCONCENTRATIONHEALTHLAWCONCENTR
F or more than a decade, CUNY Law’s signature clinical program has been recognized
as a national leader in clinical education. The clinics are structured as an in-house
law firm called Main Street Legal Services. Students in the clinic provide direct, super-
vised client representation to more than 1,000 low-income individuals and families through-
out New York City.
“The clinics model effective social justice lawyering in a range of areas,” said Associate
Dean for Clinical Programs Sameer Ashar. “Our students bring to the program strong commit-
ment and, in most cases, directly relevant work experience. We provide them with opportuni-
ties to work alongside clients and partner organizations, as they learn to become excellent
lawyers for poor people.”
Unlike other law schools, which typically limit clinical experience to eight credits, CUNY re-
quires each third-year student to participate in a clinic or clinical concentration for one or two
semesters (12 to 16 credits). To prepare students for direct client work, the clinics engage
them in a prerequisite lawyering seminar, which uses simulations, mock jury trials, media-
tions, arbitrations, and substantive theory as training.
Each CUNY Law clinic and clinical concentration serves a distinct social justice and edu-
cational need. We invite you to read more about the amazing students, faculty, and clients at
the heart of CUNY Law’s clinical program.

Associate Dean for Clinical Programs Sameer Ashar

SPRING 2010 9
ECONOMICJUSTICEPROJECTELDERLAWIMMIGRANT
J
ose and Carmen were getting on a bus back to New York
City after a long day of employment training in upstate New
York. Their journey stopped abruptly, however, when U.S.
Immigration and Customs singled them out at the bus station
for identification to determine whether they were legally al-
lowed to be in the United States.
“Racial profiling has led to the targeting and intimidation of
different communities in this country,” said Liliana Yanez, an
instructor in CUNY Law’s Immigrant & Refugee Rights Clinic
(IRRC). “There’s a clear disregard for basic rights under the law,
and many people, as in Jose and Carmen’s case, are being denied
due process,” she added.
This case is among the many addressing the constitutional,
due process, and search and seizure violations that make up the
docket of the IRRC. One of the first immigration law clinics in
the country, the clinic takes a broader approach than most law
IMMIGRANT
&REFUGEERIGHTS
schools. It covers areas as varied as national security and de-
tainee rights in the wake of 9/11, battered immigrant women’s
rights, labor rights, and deportation and asylum.
Through the clinic, students act as first chair in represent-
ing clients. They interview witnesses, prepare clients for trial,
gather and submit evidence, craft legal strategy, and brief
issues. “The students are centrally involved in all of the cases,”
said Yanez. “We provide the supervision to support them in
their role as attorneys.”
The clinic’s docket continues to grow as misguided legisla-
tion, passed under the guise of anti-terrorism measures and
immigration reform, further threatens the civil liberties of im-
migrant communities of color. The docket includes cases of legal
permanent residents who have already served their sentences for
misdemeanors committed decades ago but who suddenly find
themselves facing deportation for those long-ago crimes.
“Families are being torn apart in the name of ‘immigration
enforcement,’ ” said Yanez. “These punitive laws make every
immigrant vulnerable, including legal permanent residents and
those fleeing persecution from other countries.” The clinic repre-
sents individual clients and also supports a variety of communi-
ty-based organizations to advocate for changes in the law.
Through its national security work protecting the habeas
corpus rights of detainees abroad, the students represent
10 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu
From left, Director of the Immigrant & Refugee Rights Clinic (IRRC)
Ramzi Kassem, IRRC Instructor Liliana Yanez, IRRC Social Work
Supervisor and Adjunct Professor Martha Garcia, and CUNY Law
Director of Immigrant Initiatives Alizabeth Newman
three detainees in Guantánamo Bay and a detainee at Bagram
Airbase in Afghanistan who has been imprisoned since 2003
without charges or access to an attorney. In the U.S., students
in the IRRC, in tandem with CUNY Law School’s Criminal
Defense Clinic, also work with Muslim-based community
groups in Queens whose members suddenly find themselves
approached by law enforcement. “Individuals and families are
facing interrogation at home, at work, and in their places of
worship,” said IRRC Director Ramzi Kassem. “The students are
educating people on their rights.”
IRRC students also provide urgent legal assistance to im-
migrant survivors of gender violence. Immigrant spouses of
abusive U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents are easy prey.
“Often, women suffer physical and emotional abuse, but if they
leave their marriage before they gain legal status, they could
face deportation,” said CUNY Law Director of Immigrant Initia-
tives Alizabeth Newman. In response, the clinic partnered
with an organization called SEPA Mujer in Long Island to assist
women in applying for legal status. The clinic provides an
interdisciplinary environment, with the involvement of social
work students and IRRC Social Work Supervisor and Adjunct
Professor Martha Garcia. This gives law students a broader,
more multifaceted approach to clients, particularly clients who
have experienced trauma.
Some immigrants confront exploitation and abuse not
only in the home, but also on the job. Clinic students represent
domestic workers and immigrant restaurant workers who are
denied wages, hours, or worker protections. “Our immigrant
labor docket directly supports low-wage worker organizing in a
range of industries and immigrant communities,” said Sameer
Ashar, associate dean for clinical programs. ••
T&REFUGEERIGHTSHELPINGHAITIANSINNEEDCRI

W
hen tragedy struck Haiti in January, CUNY Law stu-
dents took action. “Immediately the students wanted
to use their legal skills to do something to help,” said
CUNY Law Director of Immigrant Initiatives Alizabeth New-
man. “They recognized that many Haitians living in the U.S.
every Saturday, CUNY Law students go on-site to Cambria
Heights and screen people for TPS eligibility, counsel them on
the application process, assist them with the paperwork, and
draft affidavits, when necessary, to prove Haitian descent.

HELPING
could not return home, since their communities were destroyed
by the earthquakes,” she explained. “But the students knew

that legal protection was needed for them to stay here.”
As a result, the students formed a new partnership with
Haitian Americans United for Progress, helping Haitians file
for temporary protected status (TPS). Gaining TPS will enable
Haitians living here to stay in the U.S. for another 18 months
while their country is being rebuilt. TPS also provides an op-
portunity for work authorization that serves as a government-
issued ID and entitles the holder to a Social Security number,
so that he or she can work while in the United States.
“There are people who were here on a three-month tourist
visa, and suddenly their entire village and families are gone,”
reflected Newman. “Others have been here longer, trying to
build a better life. Their options for going back to Haiti have
radically, and often irrevocably, changed.”
To support the student-driven initiative, Newman said,
faculty from the Immigrant & Refugee Rights Clinic (IRRC)
agreed to reconfigure the syllabus, so that Newman could teach
the history, politics, and legal mechanics of filing for TPS. Now,
HAITIANSINNEED
Although this project is being run through CUNY Law’s
IRRC, it is not limited to third-year clinic students. First-year and
second-year CUNY Law students have also volunteered and are
getting direct hands-on experience serving communities in need.
“We have students acting as assistants and interpreters and have
established a tiered level of supervision and training among stu-
dents,” said Newman. Alums from the Law School’s Community
Legal Resource Network with expertise in immigration law are
also involved.
“CUNY Law students and practitioners are linked to dif-
ferent communities, so we can be responsive when something
comes up,” Newman noted. “We are very proud of our students’
initiative, commitment, and savvy in supporting New York’s
diverse populations.” ••

Top row, from left: Martin

Brown, Talia Peleg, IRRC
Instructors Alizabeth Newman
and Liliana Yanez, Daniel
Debski. Second row, from left:
Laura Matthews, Nitin Goyal,
Christina Jensen, Mona Patel,
Madhuri Kumar. Bottom row,
from left: Yasmin Salama,
Shirley Lin, Lili Biesemeyer,
Disha Chandiramani

SPRING 2010 11
CRIMINALDEFENSECLINICCOMMUNITY&ECONOM

CRIMINAL
W
alking down the street on the way to a friend’s house doesn’t sound risky, does

DEFENSE
it? It could be, however, if you are African-American or Latino. Data reveals that
most individuals stopped and frisked, arrested, and locked in holding cells in
New York City’s criminal courts are people of color.
“There are some stops and arrests that would never happen in other neighbor-
Challenging the Status Quo hoods. When we have clients who are arrested for trespass while simply trying to
visit a friend’s apartment, it really makes you question the practices and policies that
are being used by the police,” said Nicole Smith, an instructor in the Criminal Defense Clinic.
In other scenarios, Smith said young African-American and Latino men can suddenly find themselves handcuffed for resist-
ing arrest, simply because they questioned why they were frisked when only cell phones and keys were found.
“Many law school clinics deal with prisoner reentry,” said Clinic Director Steve Zeidman. “We’re more concerned with how
and why someone entered in the first place. You don’t have to look too far to see the racially disparate impact of New York City’s
heralded quality-of-life policing,” he explained. “The end results of so-called ‘broken windows’ policing, where police target certain
neighborhoods and aggressively enforce minor infractions, are the harassment and destabilization of families and neighborhoods
of color. If broken windows are the problem, why not just fix the windows?”
Student defenders are wholly involved in their cases. They interview clients and witnesses, investigate the scene, research the
law, file all necessary motions, and advocate on their clients’ behalf in and out of the courtroom. In addition to this aspect of its
docket, the clinic strives to address some of prisoners’ unmet legal needs, including addressing disciplinary hearings that result
in long stretches of de facto solitary confinement, resentencing under Rockefeller Drug Law reforms, and submitting petitions for
gubernatorial clemency. “Given that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, our goal is to train new lawyers to
help a desperately underserved population and to expose the injustice and absurdity of trying to solve social problems by locking
people up,” said Clinic Professor Donna Lee.
Recently, the clinic assisted several men eligible for new, lower sentences under Rockefeller Drug Law reforms. The process
made a deep impression on clinic student Bronyn Heubach. “The man we met with had no reason to trust us or to put his faith in
us. But he did, and he opened up his entire life. You just don’t get that in any other context, and it’s powerful to tell someone you
are going to try to help deliver their freedom,” Heubach said. Heubach and her law student partner argued that the reforms were
meant specifically for someone like their client, a man with undiagnosed mental health problems serving five-and-a-half to 11
years for being peripherally involved in a drug sale. The motion was granted, and their client was released from prison.
In another case, a man with deep community and family ties was serving four-and-a-half to nine years for selling $10 worth
of cocaine. The students filed a motion on his behalf arguing that on every statutory and moral measure, he had already served
more than enough prison time. Although the prosecutor argued in opposition, the motion was granted and the client was released.
“The work in the clinic immediately reconnected me to why I wanted to go to law school,” said student Beena Ahmad. “From
the initial interaction with a client to seeing a case all the way through, I’ve had the opportunity to tackle the issues of civil liber-
ties and incarceration.” Both Heubach and Ahmad called it “an honor” to work on these cases. ••

Back row, from left: Instructor Nicole Smith, Clinic Director Steve Zeidman, Student Bronyn Heubach
Front row, from left: Professor Donna Lee, Student Beena Ahmad

12 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu

I
INTERNATIONALWOMEN’SHUMANRIGHTSMEDIATIO

R
amona Ortega’s vision to organize domestic workers in Queens and launch a worker-owned cooperative was met with wide-
spread enthusiasm. “Cooperatives create desperately needed employment alternatives and contribute to the larger workers’
rights movement,” said Ortega, who founded Cidadao Global (CG), the first Brazilian community-based organization in New
York City. “A domestic workers’ cooperative owned and operated by immigrant women guards against the pervasive wage and
gender exploitation that is all too common in the industry,” she added.
“Now that the domestic workers are part of a cooperative, they aren’t just going alone into someone’s house, and that makes
a powerful difference,” Ortega said. “Joining together supports them in negotiating wages and hours and provides them with the
respect that their work deserves and the dignity of being a small-business owner.”
Ortega turned to CUNY Law’s Community & Economic Development Clinic (CEDC) to help the women establish their
business. “I knew that CUNY Law was the place to assist us in develop-
ing the cooperative,” she remembered. “The commitment to public interest
shows in how the students work with the women.” Incorporating a small
business and drafting bylaws are not just legal transactions for the CEDC. COMMUNITY&
ECONOMIC
Instead, students get involved with organizations on a much deeper and
more philosophical level.

DEVELOPMENT
“We work creatively with nonprofits and cooperatives to help them think
through different models of sustainability and structure,” said CEDC Director
Carmen Huertas-Noble. “The traditional hierarchical and centralized business
models typically don’t represent our clients’ missions, which are based on
diffusing and sharing power,” she added. As a result, students have the op-
Turning Vision into Reality
portunity to help launch organizations that build collective leadership and are
structured on alternative ownership and governance models. “Typical corporate structures don’t apply neatly to our clients, and
a lot of tailoring needs to be done. It’s exciting and engaging for our students to work on innovative projects that promote social
justice,” said Huertas-Noble.
Students work directly with the members of CG, talking through their vision, facilitating their decision making on the legal
issues, and capturing those decisions when drafting corresponding legal documents. In addition to CG, CEDC clients include
Rehabilitation in Action to Improve Neighborhoods (RAIN), a community land trust on the Lower East Side that provides for sus-
tainable affordable housing, and the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-U), which fights for improved employment
conditions for restaurant workers. In this instance, students have counseled ROC-U on its vision of expanding nationally and are
currently drafting an affiliation agreement between ROC-U and its affiliates.
“CEDC clients are advocates against employment abuses, gender exploitation, environmental injustice, and other social injus-
tices. They want to structure their model organizations to reflect their social justice values,” Huertas-Noble emphasized. “Students
work closely with clients to help them navigate their choices on a number of mission-driven subjects in which other attorneys
typically don’t engage. We help our clients figure out who will have what kind of power within the organization and how that
power will be exercised,” she said. “It’s very nuanced in that we help organizations institutionalize their values through the legal
structures we help create.” ••

From left: Student Thyra Smith, Cidadao Global Founder Ramona Ortega,
Student Maggie Sposato, CEDC Director Carmen Huertas-Noble

SPRING 2010 15
EQUALITYCONCENTRATION HEALTHLAWCONCENTR

F
rom its inception as one of the first human rights clinics at a What are you working on in the clinic?
U.S.-based law school, CUNY Law’s International Women’s
Farnoosh: I’m currently working on the case of a young woman
Human Rights Clinic has pursued a multifaceted strategy
who was trafficked to the United States from her home in South
to access justice, paying particular attention to the intersections
America when she was 16 years old. She was falsely promised
of race, gender, and class worldwide. The clinic’s innovative legal
that she would be paid to take care of her stepsister’s newborn
advocacy and in-depth collaborations with clients, activists,
infant and that she would have the opportunity to go to high
and co-counsel in diverse and multicultural settings are dis-
school in the United States. This action was brought under federal
tinct marks of its groundbreaking work in the areas of violence
and state wage and hour laws, pursuant to the Alien Tort Claims
against women and reproductive, sexual, and economic justice.
Act for trafficking, slavery, forced labor, involuntary servitude,
unjust enrichment, and state torts. At this point, we are preparing

INTERNATIONAL for oral arguments on a summary judgment motion. This case is

important because while trafficking within families is a common

WOMEN’SHUMAN
occurrence, it has been overlooked by the legal system. This case
shows that abuse and exploitation of domestic workers occurs not

RIGHTS
only in traditional settings but also among family members.

Renee: My group and I have teamed up with the Nobel Women’s

Students In Their Own Words
A conversation with third-year law clinic students Farnoosh
Moghadassi and Renee Love
What inspired you to choose the International Women’s
Human Rights (IWHR) Clinic as your clinic placement?
Farnoosh: I chose to attend this law school specifically for the
IWHR Clinic, as it is one of the few human rights clinics in
the U.S. that focuses on women’s rights. Being from Iran, a
country with an oppressive patriarchy where conservative rul-
ers have stripped women of their basic rights, opened my eyes
to the many injustices faced by women throughout the world.
I wanted to join the IWHR Clinic in order to acquire a founda-
tional knowledge of international law and to gain the capacity
to challenge injustice through creative, strategic thinking. In
addition, I wanted to learn more about particular issues such as
trafficking, gender discrimination, religion, and culture as they
relate to international human rights law.
Initiative to present the International Tribunal on Crimes Against
Women of Burma, which was held in New York City in March
2010.  This project consisted of doing a lot of research on interna-
tional human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against hu-
manity.  We also worked with the judges, who were Nobel laure-
ates and human rights advocates, to determine what the findings
were and what the recommendations should be for addressing
these human rights issues.  Currently, we are working on the final
judgment, which will explain the facts, taken from the testimonies
and human rights reports; the international criminal law and
human rights violations that apply to Burma; and the findings and
recommendations from the judges. The most memorable part was
that we were able to work with the testifiers before the tribunal to
make sure their stories were told to the world. ••

Renee: I chose to go to law school after living in an impov-

erished area in the former Soviet Union for two years and
witnessing firsthand what women’s lives are like when they are
not given the same rights as men, or don’t have the same access Farnoosh
Moghadassi
as men to a better life.  This is also why I chose the Interna-
tional Women’s Human Rights Clinic. Through the clinic, we Renee Love
are able to learn about different human rights and different
techniques and venues to advocate for those rights. The clinic
also introduces us to options for fighting for international hu-
man rights laws and norms domestically in the United States,
which hopefully I will be able to do after law school.

16 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu

RATIONECONOMICJUSTICEPROJECTELDERLAWIMM
O
ne of the founding faculty members of CUNY School of Law,
Professor Beryl Blaustone is a leading authority in the fields
of alternative dispute resolution and clinical legal education.
Recognized nationally and internationally for her scholarship and
subject-matter expertise, Professor Blaustone has published in the
areas of mediation theory, professional roles, clinical legal educa-
tion, professional skills theory, and evidence law.
What distinguishes CUNY Law’s Mediation Clinic?
Unlike clinics at other other law schools, our Mediation Clinic
is an intensive, full-time semester clinical offering that requires
a prerequisite lawyering seminar in mediation. This mediation
program combines rigorous theoretical study with advanced skills
building. As a result, from day one in the clinic, clinic interns start
observing actual cases and begin their mediation practice in a
number of different venues. They mediate cases in New York State
Civil Court, small claims court, and Queens community mediation
centers. They participate in mediation of employment discrimina-
tion claims and in disability discrimination claims. They learn
through close faculty supervision, intensive debriefing, profes-
sional reflection, and semiweekly rounds. The Mediation Clinic
averages between 55 and 75 cases each fall semester.
What skills do students learn through the clinic?
Mediation Clinic interns become competent problem solvers
in many different contexts within our legal justice system, as
well as in society as a whole. Students learn how to rigorously
investigate the facts, gather information, and problem solve.
Importantly, they also learn active listening, which is the most
fundamental skill to any successful legal interviewing activ-
ity. The students are trained to uncover the essential issues
in a case, so that they are not solely focused on a legal theory.
Rather, they are addressing all the nuances and implications of
the situation for each party involved in the case.
In addition to conducting mediations, students research le-
gal issues, write briefing memos for advocates and mediators,
and advise individuals and organizational clients on adopting
effective institutional decision-making systems. CUNY Law
alumni of the Mediation Clinic have gone on to work in a full
range of positions in both the private and public sectors. They
are practicing family law and conducting divorce mediations;
directing community mediation centers; directing specific
mediation programs; serving as law clerks charged with me-
diating cases for their judges; and working as advocates in the
fields of foster care, juvenile justice, and disability rights.
What types of issues and cases does the clinic tackle?
In addition to working in the courts and with community
mediation programs, we have a special project dedicated to
Professor Beryl Blaustone, Director of CUNY’s Mediation Clinic
the mediation of employment discrimination claims and
disability discrimination claims. These cases offer important
professional development opportunities for CUNY Law stu-
dents because the numbers of these disputes are increasing,
and these matters demand attention to an individualized
sense of fairness that often cannot be effectively provided
by our courts. Next year, we will begin a pilot program in
mediating special education cases.
MEDIATION
A Conversation with Beryl Blaustone
How does mediation contribute to social justice lawyering?
Many mediation skills are essential for all lawyering in the
21st century because effective legal problem solving requires a
multidimensional approach and not solely an adversarial per-
spective. Mediation can be an empowering experience for all
parties, but especially those from marginalized communities.
Our law students support the exercise of self-determination as
well as accountability among conflicting parties by restoring
decision-making authority to all participants in the dispute.
There is great hope for change when people decide what’s in
their own best interests, rather than having someone else dic-
tate it. This creates the possibility for more participation among
disenfranchised voices in public affairs.
Mediation can provide more opportunity for balanced
participation because mediators are ethically obligated to
guard against overreaching and exploitation. In the Mediation
Clinic, we drafted our own governing professional code of
ethics, which sets the best standards for mediation practice;
our interns operate at all times under these high expectations.
This is especially important because many people cannot
afford a lawyer. In fact, we are seeing more and more cases of
self-representation. We are committed to providing as much
access as possible. ••
SPRING 2010 17
HELPINGHAITIANSINNEEDCRIMINALDEFENSECLIN

T
he impact of a new local ordinance was clear: It primarily targeted Latinos, said third-year CUNY Law student Katie Meyers.
Passed in a suburban enclave of Long Island, the law banned day laborers, most of whom were Latino, from soliciting work.
“I was in the field, meeting with community advocates and brainstorming means by which to organize Latinos who were
suddenly prohibited from seeking the work that was so vital to supporting their families. It’s important that people affected by
the law have a voice,” said Meyers, discussing her field placement with LatinoJustice PRLDEF, formerly the Puerto Rican Legal
Defense and Education Fund.
Challenging civil rights violations is at the heart of CUNY Law’s Equality Concentration. Through a range of social justice field
placements, students learn firsthand how to apply constitutional law and civil rights statutes. Meyers said her internship with
LatinoJustice PRLDEF also provided her with an opportunity to brief recent Supreme Court decisions for attorneys, including
analyzing what impact these cases will have on future litigation, particularly disparate impact cases. “The fieldwork gave me an
opportunity to extend the work I did as an undergraduate on contemporary race relations and discrimination.”
Professor Rick Rossein, who runs the Equality Concentration, said that
CUNY Law’s deep ties to the civil rights and social justice communities

EQUALITY provide ample opportunity for solid, in-depth field placements. Student
experiences might include conducting fact finding on a police brutality case,

CONCENTRATION
investigating discrimination claims, drafting a brief in a gender or race dis-
crimination case, or assisting with depositions. “We have a strong network of
field placements, and CUNY Law students are trusted by the organizations in
On Site, Fostering Justice which they are placed,” said Rossein. “The students’ knowledge base allows
them to be quickly integrated into a field placement and to take on important
responsibilities.”
“Through the years, CUNY Law interns have provided valuable legal research, client preparation, and pre-trial preparation in
our constitutional and civil rights litigation,” said Jackson Chin, an associate counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF. “We continue to
support the School’s vision of incubating the next generation of public interest law practitioners and leaders.”
Other field placements include the Center for Constitutional Rights; Legal Momentum; New York Lawyers for the Public Inter-
est; the New York State Attorney General’s Office, Civil Rights Bureau; the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; the
New York State Division for Human Rights; and private firms handling civil rights litigation.
“Our goal,” explained Rossein, “is to pair on-site learning with doctrine, theory, and lawyering skills so that students get a well-
rounded and strong knowledge base.” Rossein added that those in the concentration examine racial and sexual discrimination and
harassment in the workplace, in addition to affirmative action, sexual orientation, disability, age, and other potential discrimina-
tion issues. “Part of the pedagogy is to ensure that seminar teachings relate directly to the work the students do in the field. Unlike
other law schools,” he added, “we don’t just outsource our students into field placements. We closely supervise them, pay attention
to their placements, and provide an opportunity for the students to learn from one another.”
In addition to fieldwork and weekly rounds where students talk about the legal issues they are addressing in the field, the con-
centration includes group work, where students are put in small teams that then act as a “firm” on a hypothetical case. Through
the simulations, students collaborate in lawyering exercises including developing the facts of a case, drafting legal memoranda,
preparing discovery plans, drafting court complaints, and conducting examinations in a trial-like setting. “Throughout CUNY
Law, whether it is in the clinics or in the classroom, we take a comprehensive approach, using everything from hypotheticals to
field placements, all with the goal of integrating theory and practice,” said Rossein. ••

From left: Student Katie Meyers, LatinoJustice PRLDEF Associate Counsel

Jackson Chin, Equality Concentration Director Rick Rossein

18 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu

N
COMMUNITY&ECONOMICDEVELOPMENTINTERNAT
C
allers phoning the New York Legal Aid Society’s Health
Law Unit face serious legal problems, including the denial
of life-saving surgery, crushing medical debt, and the
wrongful termination of Medicaid benefits. They’ve called the
unit because they can’t afford a lawyer. For many years, interns
from CUNY Law School’s Health Law Concentration have been
among the people taking their calls.
HEALTHLAW
CONCENTRATION
In the Field, Making Change
“CUNY Law students are very well-rounded and can hit
the ground running,” said Legal Aid Supervising Attorney Lisa
Sbrana, a 1993 CUNY Law School graduate who was one of the
first students in the concentration. “CUNY students are good
listeners and make people know that they’ve been heard,” she
added. “They are very adept at sifting through each situation and
making recommendations for potential cases. And,” she noted,
“when CUNY Law interns translate a caller’s case into a fair
hearing or an advocacy letter, it isn’t just stilted legal analysis.
They link the law to the facts in a way that’s very compelling.”
In 2009, for Sbrana’s contribution to protecting the health-
care rights of low-income New Yorkers, she was recognized
with the New York City Bar Association’s Legal Services Award.
20 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu
CUNY alum and Supervising
Attorney for the Legal Aid
Society’s Health Law Unit
Lisa Sbrana and Health
Law Concentration Director
Paula Berg
This year she was honored with the Commission on the Public’s
Health System’s 2010 Public Health Heroes and Sheroes Award.
“We have a very dedicated group of field supervisors who
do interesting and important work and who have a real interest
in teaching our students and being role models,” said Professor
Paula Berg, who directs the concentration, which has been co-
taught with CUNY Law Professor Janet Calvo. “Field opportuni-
ties for students in health law are extremely varied in terms of
substantive law and lawyering skills,” she added.
In addition to the Legal Aid Society’s Health Law Unit,
students intern with the Attorney General’s Health Law Unit,
organizations focused on HIV/AIDS and other health issues,
private firms handling plaintiffs’ medical malpractice cases
and suits against health insurance companies, government
agencies that regulate health-care institutions, and hospital in-
house counsel offices.
The curriculum and placements look at health care as a
social justice issue. “One of our main goals is to teach students
how to use the law to secure access to quality health care for
vulnerable populations, such as the disabled, poor people, the
elderly, and those with HIV,” said Berg. Sbrana agrees that the
concentration makes an important contribution to the field
and to academia. “The Health Law Concentration has a unique
perspective in its approach to health care as a human right and
in the way that it links book knowledge to practical skills and
real life,” observed Sbrana.
“The most gratifying thing about teaching this program for
so many years,” said Berg, “is that there are now many, many
Health Law Concentration graduates who, like Lisa, are doing
great work and making a real difference.” ••
TIONALWOMEN’SHUMANRIGHTSMEDIATIONEQUALI

I
n 1996, when Congress enacted federal “welfare reform,”
lives across the country changed, including the lives of
more than 25,000 low-income students pursuing degrees at
CUNY campuses across New York City. Large numbers of these
students were single mothers working to obtain the college
degree that would enable them to lift their families out of pov-
erty, but the new law—which mandated harsh new “workfare”
requirements—made it virtually impossible for these students
offers a new model for social justice movement building. “Our
commitment of legal resources to advance grassroots organiz-
ing efforts both borrows from ’60s-era strategies and attempts
to move beyond them. We encourage our students to think
creatively, though perhaps with some humility, about the vari-
ous ways in which law and its practitioners can contribute to
movements for progressive social change.” ••

ECONOMIC
to continue their education.
Indeed, the federal law, coupled with a particularly aggres-
sive campaign by then mayor Rudy Giuliani’s administration
to slash the city’s welfare rolls, forced thousands of low-income
CUNY students to abandon school—and the promise of living-
wage employment—to take up “workfare” positions, raking
JUSTICEPROJECT
leaves in the parks, sweeping streets, and the like. “Not only Graduation as an Anti-Poverty Strategy
did the City’s approach senselessly harm thousands of strug-
gling families,” said Stephen Loffredo, director of CUNY Law’s
Economic Justice Project, “it was also enormously counterpro-
ductive from a policy perspective.”
Empirical studies showed that nearly 90 percent of welfare
recipients permitted to earn a baccalaureate degree from CUNY
obtained substantial employment and exited the welfare sys-
tem permanently. By contrast, parents forced out of school and
into the first low-wage job available overwhelmingly remained
in poverty and tended to cycle back into welfare.
In response to this social justice crisis, CUNY Law launched
the Economic Justice Project (EJP) in 1997. EJP students work
on several fronts, including providing direct representation to
CUNY undergraduates facing challenges to their workfare re-
quirements and pressing for the adoption of more rational and
humane policies. EJP students also work with community anti-
poverty organizations, principally the Welfare Rights Initiative
(WRI), an activist organization mobilizing low-income students
that emerged at CUNY’s Hunter College.
EJP and WRI’s collaboration has reached more than 1,000
CUNY students and has achieved important successes in shift-
ing public policy, including the Work Study and Internship
Law. This state statute substantially increased access to college
for people receiving public assistance. Currently, the EJP–WRI
collaboration is focused at the state level on legislation that
would permit four-year college students to count academic
work toward workfare requirements. At the federal level, EJP
and WRI are working on the 2010 Congressional reauthoriza-
tion of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
“The mutual reinforcement between legal advocacy, law
reform, and grassroots activism makes it possible to deepen
our impact,” said Loffredo. He also noted that the collaboration Economic Justice Project Director Stephen Loffredo

SPRING 2010 21
22 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu
EQUALITYCONCENTRATIONHEALTHLAWCONCENTR

ELDERLAW
“W
orking in the Elder Law Clinic is like having a regular job with the added advantage
of close supervision and guidance from the professors,” said Elder Law Clinic student
Maryam Arif. “We get direct client contact, go to court, and draft documents that Protecting the Aged
help ordinary people solve everyday problems.”
Aside from physical and emotional issues that may require attention, elders and their families often have to tackle a number of
legal issues, such as planning for incapacity and death, navigating the maze of government benefits, or securing a guardianship as
a last resort for an elder who needs help in managing her personal and property needs. Elders also face situations of neglect and
abuse, which require urgent legal intervention.
“Students in the clinic work closely with clients, other professionals, the courts, and families to map out and resolve the elder’s
specific legal needs,” said Elder Law Clinic Director Joe Rosenberg. “The Law School curriculum, including clinic seminars and
supervision, provides students with a critical perspective, legal knowledge, and lawyering skills that prepare them for client repre-
sentation,” added Rosenberg, who supervises each case and works closely with students individually and in teams.
The cases on which students work can vary from adult guardianships that involve litigation to estate planning that requires
students to draft wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and advanced health directives. In addition, in a testament to the credibility and
reputation of the Elder Law Clinic, phone calls from courts and prospective clients seeking CUNY Law’s assistance in guardian-
ship proceedings are common.
Specifically, courts appoint the Elder Law Clinic to serve as court evaluator or attorney in guardianship cases to protect indi-
viduals who are alleged to be incapacitated. Students investigate these cases to ensure that the allegations are authentic, and, if a
guardian is appointed, that the guardian is granted only those powers that are necessary.
Arif talked about the complexities of these cases. “These cases can determine who may or may not ultimately gain control of
someone’s finances, property, health care decisions, and other personal matters, including where to live,” said Arif. “These are ma-
jor life decisions, so it’s critical that we investigate each case thoroughly and protect the rights of the elderly, some of whom may
be vulnerable to financial exploitation and abuse.”
Arif is in the process of arguing in support of an elderly woman who contacted CUNY Law because a guardian was appointed
to oversee her personal and property needs after a New York Supreme Court in Queens County deemed her incapacitated follow-
ing an eviction proceeding. Each month, the caseworker from the guardianship agency gives Arif’s client only a small portion
of her Social Security check to live on, while asserting that the remainder is going into a trust. “The client is understandably
distressed and wants to be free from their control,” said Arif. “I have been working with her and believe that she is able to care
for herself with the support of friends and family, making a guardian unnecessary. We will go to court on her behalf, should the
guardian refuse to step down,” she added.
In cases in which the clinic serves as court evaluator (the “eyes and ears” of the court), clinic students work with the judge and
attorneys for the parties, and an array of other professionals (including doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, and home
care workers) analyze legal and nonlegal issues, outline a series of recommendations in a written report, and testify at the hearing.
Although graduating students in this clinic are prepared for elder law practice, they also often apply their clinic experience in
family law and general community-based practices. ••

Elder Law Clinic Director Joe Rosenberg and Student Maryam Arif

SPRING 2010 23
a lumni • news
Alumni News
1986
ROBERT BANK joined American Jew-
ish World Service as executive vice
president in March 2009. Last year,
he received the Lifetime Achievement
Award from Gay Men’s Health Crisis
and the Partners in Justice Award from
AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps.
In January, he was a featured speaker
at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah,
as part of their Martin Luther King Jr.
Day celebration. He lives in New York
City with his life partner, Alan Cohen.
JANE COLEMAN CAMERON was recently cer-
tified as an advanced Relax and Renew
yoga instructor.
ALICE GADELOFF GRAVES writes “The Sec-
ond Half,” a column about life after 50,
for the St. Petersburg Times. She is work-
ing on her master’s degree in library and
information science at the University of
South Florida.
BRIAN H. LOWY received the President’s
Award for Excellence in Teaching at the
Queens College Faculty and Staff Assem-
bly in October 2009.
1987
HON. DORIS GONZALEZ was appointed act-
ing supreme court justice by Hon. Anne
Pfau in Bronx County in January 2010.
1988
Since October 2007, JANE JAFFE has been
an administrative law judge in Brooklyn
for the New York State Office of Chil-
dren and Family Services.
1990
EDWARD A. SQUILLANTE JR. is registered
to practice before the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office and received an LL.M.
in intellectual property law from the John
Marshall Law School in January 1999. He
has been working at Unilever USA since
24 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu
1998 as associate general counsel, and
patents and regional patent director of
Northeast Asia.
HON. THOMAS J. WALSH was sworn in as a
superior court judge for the State of New
Jersey in January 2010. He was assigned to
the Family Part of the Chancery Division
in Union County Vicinage in Elizabeth.
1991
Ellen Pober Rittberg
ELLEN POBER RITTBERG has published 35
Things Your Teens Won’t Tell You, So I Will.
The book describes her techniques, such as
guerilla parenting, using stealth, express-
ing love, and assuming the proper stance
and position. Visit www.ellenpoberritt-
berg.com for information on readings. 
1992
MARYBETH ROGERS has been named a
superior court judge of the Civil Division
in Hudson County, N.J.
1993
EVE ROSAHN continues to serve as the di-
rector of the Parole Revocation Defense
Unit of the Legal Aid Society, a position
she has held since 2008.
ROGER SCHRADING continues as a public
defender in the Homicide Unit of the De-
fender Association of Philadelphia. He is
also an adjunct professor at Temple Uni-
versity’s Beasley School of Law. He lives
in northwest Philadelphia with REBECCA
BAEHR (’93) and their two daughters. 
1994
ANN FAWCETT AMBIA and HARVEY EPSTEIN
(’94) were honored at the New York City
Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild’s
2009 Spring Fling for legal work in the
tenants’ rights movement. Now with
the Administrative Law Unit at DC 37
MELS, Fawcett Ambia is also doing
some temporary protected status appli-
cations for undocumented Haitians. 
KATYA PLOTNIK announces the birth of her
daughter, Tara Sophie, born in December
2009. She has started a solo immigration
practice in Forest Hills, New York.
HON. TODD M. TURNER was elected to a
third term in November as council mem-
ber in the City of Bowie, Maryland, and
was recently selected to serve as second
vice chair of the Washington Council of
Governments Transportation Planning
Board as the Maryland representative. 
1995
CHARLES CASOLARO was recently asked
by the new Nassau County execu-
tive, Edward Mangano, to assist in the
revamping of the Nassau tax/property
assessment system.
JUDITH FLAMENBAUM closed her private prac-
tice in 2002, in which she had represent-
ed women who were victims of domestic
violence. She then became the director
of the Contested Matrimonial Program
at the Association of the Bar of the City
of New York (ABCNY). Now retired, she
volunteers at ABCNY on publication
divorces and is on the Legal Advisory
Committee for Sanctuary for Families.
DR. SAM OAKLAND, though no longer
with the Siberian Law Institute at
Novosibirsk State University (NSU),

still writes recommendations for his
former NSU & Belarus State Economic
University law students in Russian law
practice in the former Soviet Union.
He also continues his work as a U.S.
forest park ranger.
LINDA H. SCHWAGER, who has a solo practice
in Oakland, New Jersey, was reappointed
as a prosecutor in the Bergen County
Central Municipal Court in Hackensack
and nominated to become treasurer of
the Bergen County Bar Association.
ROSINA TAFFURI was a staff attorney at
the Administration for Children’s Ser-
vices through 2000 and then a court at-
torney for the New York State Office of
Court Administration through 2008. In
2009, she was appointed deputy chief
court counsel to the New York City
Family Court and also appointed direc-
tor of the Access to Justice Volunteer
Attorney Program for the New York
City Family Court.
1996
JOSEPH B. MAIRA invites inquiries con-
cerning cases in any New Jersey county.
Information at www.mairalaw.com.
1998
KATHLEEN E. MCLAUGHLIN continues the
general practice firm she established in
2004 and also works part-time as an ER
nurse and as a staff pool attorney for
the Monmouth County Public Defenders
Office’s Juvenile Division.
KEVIN K. TUNG’S practice, Kevin Kerveng
Tung, P.C., established in 1999, has
grown to 10 attorneys and specializes
in civil and criminal litigations, real
estate and business transactions, securi-
ties compliance filings, business merger
and acquisitions, bankruptcy filings
and litigations, and immigration. Infor-
mation at www.kktlawfirm.com.
1999
PEGGY FARRELL, who held the maiden
name Jacobson, and then later Roman-
Jacobson, and who now goes by Farrell,
was featured in the California Employ-
ment Lawyers Association bulletin. Her
organization, the HIV/AIDS Legal Ser-
vices Alliance, seeks fundraising support
and publicity to continue its programs in
light of government budget cuts.
2000
ANGELA M. REDMAN is now a court attorney
for the Honorable Tanya R. Kennedy in
Kings County Family Court.
HAEYOUNG YOON began work at the
National Employment Law Project in
February, working on low-wage and
immigrant worker issues. E-mail
haeyoungyoon@gmail.com.
2002
MARK S. SILVER recently published
Handbook of Mitigation in Criminal and
Immigration Forensics: Humanizing the
Client Towards a Better Legal Outcome.
2003
Christina (Trihas) Tsevoukas (’03) at her wed-
ding in September 2009. Classmates from
left: Allegra Santomauro (’03), Tsevoukas, and
Deirdre O’Brien (’03)
MICHAEL HUGHES has been appointed to
the position of principal court attorney
in the Criminal Division of the New
York State Supreme Court.
DEIRDRE O’BRIEN was a panelist on “War
Crimes Trials: Lessons for the Future” in
February 2010 at NYU Law School. She will
be an adjunct professor at the NYU School
of Continuing and Professional Studies
teaching conflict resolution in May 2010.
a llumni • news
AZALIA VOLPE (nee Lopez) gave birth to a
son, Vespasian Amand Volpe, in Novem-
ber 2009.
2004
Antonio, first son of Irma Dominguez
and John Volpe
IRMA E. DOMINGUEZ and her husband,
John Volpe, expect the birth of Benjamin
Santiago Dominguez-Volpe in June 2010.
Dominguez has cofounded and directs
a community organization, CAMINOS,
aimed at providing legal advocacy to
victims of domestic abuse.
EVA GOLINGER, in Caracas, Venezuela,
investigates U.S. strategies of interven-
tion in Latin America. She published
two books last year on developments in
Bolivia, Honduras, and Venezuela. She
is now editor-in-chief of Venezuela’s first
and only English-language newspaper,
the Correo del Orinoco International.
E-mail: evagolinger@gmail.com. 
2005
E. MICHELLE ANDREWS was appointed to
serve on the Committee on Interna-
tional Human Rights of the Associa-
tion of the Bar of the City of New York
for the 2009–2011 term. She is also a
new member of the Blue Hill Troupe, a
performance group that raises money
for New York charities. Information at
www.bht.org.
DAVID MICKENBERG has been named a
partner at the law firm of Mickenberg,
Dunn, Lachs, Hazel & Smith, in Burling-
ton, Vermont, handling labor relations,
civil litigation on behalf of not-for-
profits, and workers’ compensation
claims made by union members. Infor-
mation at www.mickdunn.com.
SPRING 2010 25
a lumni • news
MEAGHEAN MURPHY and AARON AMARAL
(’09) helped win a four-week extension
on the recent layoffs of 530 school aides
across Manhattan and Brooklyn. As part
of the Department of Education Employ-
ees Local 372 and District Council 37’s
legal team, they are preparing a new
case in an effort to have the aides rein-
stated as soon as possible.
NASOAN SHEFTEL-GOMES continues as
a staff attorney for the Community
Development Project at the Urban Justice
Center, providing direct legal services to
low-income New Yorkers with consumer
debt issues. She is engaged to be married
to painter/sculptor Navin June Norling
on October 10, 2010.
2006
RICHARD ANTHONY CELESTIN became the
program manager for the Criminal
Justice Agency’s Supervised Release
Program in Queens in January 2010. The
program targets persons at arraignment
assessed to be a moderate risk of failure
to appear and likely to be held on bail,
and provides supervision and support
services while their cases are pending in
court.
NATHANIEL E. DEAKINS works as a deputy
state public defender in the Appellate
Division of the Office of the Colorado
State Public Defender in Denver.
Neil Gillespie and Annika
Since 2007, NEIL GILLESPIE has been a staff
attorney at the Warren County, New
Jersey, Office of the Public Defender,
26 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu
handling all the juvenile cases, some adult
indictable crimes, and violations of proba-
tion. He and wife, Janne, had their first
child, Annika Claire, on January 22, 2010.
CARLA P. MONIZ was recently named one of
the Boston Bar Association’s 2009–2010
top 15 up-and-coming public interest
leaders.
ELIZABETH PALOMBO is employed as the
director of administration/staff writer
for the president of the New School in
Greenwich Village.
Lara Rabiee and Ava
LARA RABIEE is employed in Melbourne,
Australia. She and her partner, Mark,
had their first child, named Ava, in Sep-
tember 2009.
2007
SIENNA BASKIN went from Equal Justice
Works fellow to interim co-director of
the Sex Workers Project at the Urban
Justice Center, where she advocates for
the rights of sex workers and survivors
of human trafficking. She lives with her
partner, CHRISTA DOUAIHY (’08).
KIRSTEN FENIK is now living in Tucson,
Arizona.
ISIDRO “SID” GARBANZOS started his own
law practice in January 2009. He was
admitted to the D.C. Bar on motion in
December 2009.
JESSICA REED works as a housing staff at-
torney at the Bronx AIDS Services Legal
Advocacy Program.
2008
Since October of 2009, MATTHEW BARTOLINI
has been the housing attorney for the
Homelessness Prevention and Rapid
Rehousing Program of the Legal Aid
Society of Northeastern New York in
Albany.
LISA DAVIS is drafting a shadow report
on women’s human rights violations
in response to the Colombian govern-
ment’s periodic report to the U.N. Hu-
man Rights Committee. She provides
technical assistance to the University of
Los Andes Public Interest Law Clinic in
framing prisoner human rights abuses,
including gender-based abuses, for U.N.
submission.
Juliette Forstenzer Espinosa completed
her LL.M. at Georgetown Law in 2009.
She was married last year and started
Health Care Rights Initiative, a new
nonprofit. Forstenzer Espinosa is also
program consultant for the Alliance
for Ethnical International Recruitment
Practices at Academy Health in Wash-
ington D.C.
MUL KYUL KIM works as health policy
counsel at the D.C.-based National Cen-
ter for Transgender Equality on health-
related issues that the LGBT popula-
tion faces, with a particular focus on
transgender people.
DEJANA PERRONE and MASSIEL ZUCCO (’08)
have joined CLRN’s Incubator for Jus-
tice to start a small firm, Perrone
& Zucco, PLLC, focusing on direct
low-bono representation in immigra-
tion law.
2009
JAMES ALEX BARRON was admitted to the
New York Bar on January 27, 2010, and
is currently awaiting admission to the
D.C. Bar. Though still unemployed, he
participates in the Pro Bono Attorney
Volunteer Program with the New York
State Courts and the Consumer Debt
Attorney Volunteer Program at the New
York Civil Court in Manhattan. ••

Faculty Notes
MICHELLE ANDERSON moderated a panel at
the Women’s Leadership Conference at
Hunter College in November 2009. Also
that month, she made a presentation at
CUNY Law on her work to reform rape
law, and she moderated a dialog, “Out-
sider/Insider Strategies to Build Peace
and Create Social Change.”
SAMEER ASHAR completed his term as
chair of the Association of American
Law Schools Section on Poverty Law
by organizing a program at the January
2010 AALS Conference in New Orleans
titled “The New Anti-Poverty Advocacy:
Constructs, Strategies, and Tactics.”
CAITLIN BORGMANN’S article “The Mean-
ing of ‘Life’: Belief and Reason in the
Abortion Debate,” was published in the
Columbia Journal of Gender and Law
(2009).
REBECCA BRATSPIES’ recent publications
include: “Regulatory Trust” in the 51
Arizona Law Review (2009) and “Biotech-
nology, Sustainability, and Trust” in the
18 Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy
(2009). She presented “Stewardship,
Global Public Goods, and GM Crops” at
the CGIAR Strategic Study of Steward-
ship and Liability Meeting in November
2009. Bratspies also presented “What
Are Environmental Rights?” at the Uni-
versity of Connecticut’s Human Rights
in the USA conference in October 2009
and “Trust and Regulation” at the AALS
Annual Meeting in January.
RHONDA COPELON was honored with the
Crossing Borders Award by CUNY’s
Feminist Press in October 2009 at its
39th anniversary gala. The Crossing
Borders Award recognizes individuals
whose leadership promotes women’s
equality and who themselves have not
only crossed the border delineating
Facult y • NOTES
equal opportunity but have opened it
up for others to follow. In November
2009, Copelon and the International
Women’s Human Rights Clinic were
also honored for their visionary work
at a reunion of more than 100 former
students and colleagues, some of whom
came from as far away as Washington
State and Latin America.
FRANK DEALE’s article “Jurisdiction, Trans-
fer, and Pretrial: Using Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure 16 to Resolve Forum
Convenience Disputes,” was published
in the Howard Law Journal. He was also
asked and has agreed to serve on the
Professional Staff Congress’s CUNY and
Race Committee.
Professor Julie Goldscheid
Limits of the Gender Framework,” at the
Violence and Vulnerability Conference
at Emory Law School last November.
She also presented “Reconsidering State
Accountability for Domestic Violence”
at the LatCrit XIV Annual Conference at
American University in October 2009.
Goldscheid was a panelist for “The Last
Thing Hanging in the Closet: LGBT Inti-
mate Partner Violence” at the Lavender
Law Conference in September 2009
and was a panelist at a Columbia Law
School discussion, “Domestic Violence
in the LGBT Community,” in recogni-
tion of Domestic Violence Awareness
Week in October. Goldscheid published
Professor Frank Deale “Gender Violence and Work: Reckoning
with the Boundaries of Sex Discrimina-
PAMELA EDWARDS authored the chapter tion Law” in the Columbia Journal of
“Non-Mainstream Religions and the Gender and Law.
Law” in the book Law and Magic: A Col-
CARMEN HUERTAS-NOBLE and BERYL BLAUS-
lection of Essays, recently published by
TONE co-presented their article, “Lawyer-
Carolina Press (2010).
ing at the Intersection of Mediation and
JULIE GOLDSCHEID presented “Ending Vio- Community Economic Development:
lence Against Women: The Utility and Interweaving Inclusive Legal Problem
SPRING 2010 27
facult y • notes
Solving Skills in the Training of Ef-
fective Lawyers,” at the Washington
University Scholarship Roundtable on
New Directions in Dispute Resolution
and Clinical Education in November
2009. The article will be published in
volume 34 of Washington University
Journal of Law & Policy. Huertas-Noble
was also a panelist for CUNY Law’s
CLORE fall 2009 film program screen-
ing of Whose Barrio? The Gentrification
of East Harlem.
RAMZI KASSEM was quoted in a range of
media outlets, including TIME, The New
York Times, The Miami Herald, MSNBC
World News, and The San Francisco
Chronicle on military detentions in
Guantánamo Bay and Bagram Airbase
in Afghanistan and on law enforce-
ment’s racial profiling of the Muslim
community in Queens, New York. In
January, the D.C. Circuit heard oral argu-
ments in Al-Maqaleh v. Gates, the first
legal challenge on behalf of detainees at
Bagram Airbase, in which CUNY Law’s
Immigrant & Refugee Rights Clinic was
co-counsel.
JEFF KIRCHMEIER’s article, “The Undis-
covered Country: Execution Compe-
tency and Comprehending Death,” was
published in the Kentucky Law Journal
in January. He also coauthored First
Year Law School Flash Cards, which
was published by Barron’s Educational
Series, Inc. in January. Kirchmeier gave
a CLE presentation called “Foundations
of Habeas Corpus” at the Annual Ha-
beas Corpus Training Program for Pro
Bono Attorneys at the New York City
Bar Association in October 2009.
SHIRLEY LUNG presented “The Four-Day
Work Week: But What About Ms. Coke,
Ms. Upton, and Ms. Blankenship?” at the
Symposium on Redefining Work: Impli-
cations of the Four-Day Work Week in
October 2009. Her discussion addressed
the exclusion of poor and low-income
women of color from discussions about
work/family conflicts based on rising
hours of work.
28 CUNY School of Law • www.law.cuny.edu
Professor Andrea McArdle
ANDREA MCARDLE was awarded a Ph.D. in
American studies from New York Uni-
versity Graduate School of Arts and Sci-
ence, Department of Social and Cultural
Analysis, in January 2010, after defend-
ing her dissertation, “Jersey Justice and
Discourses of Power: Consumer Rights,
Good-Mother Citizenship, and the Cold
War” the previous November. She re-
cently published “Legal Texts as Cultural
Narratives of Postwar Suburbia: Gender,
Power, and Consumer Protection,” in the
anthology Redefining Suburban Stud-
ies: Searching for New Paradigms (2009)
and “The Socioeconomics of Justice:
The Perspective from the Law School
Classroom,” in International Review of
Constitutionalism 193 (2009).
JENNY RIVERA received the New York State
Bar Association’s Kay Crawford Murray
Award in January 2010. She was also
awarded the Hispanic National Bar Asso-
ciation (HNBA) President’s Award in Sep-
tember 2009, and has been appointed to
a one-year term to the HNBA’s Com-
mission on Women in the Profession.
Rivera, YVONNE CHERENA-PACHECO, and
PAMELA EDWARDS participated in panel
discussions at the Hispanic Association
of Colleges and Universities 23rd An-
nual Conference, “Pathways to a Career
in the Legal Profession,” in November
2009. Rivera also participated in the
roundtable discussion “Outsiders Inside:
Critical Outsider Theory and Praxis in
the Policymaking of the New American
Regime” and moderated the roundtable
discussion “In Search of a Wise Latina: A
Discussion on the Nomination and Con-
firmation of the First Latina Supreme
Court Justice,” at the LatCrit XIV Annual
Conference at American University in
October 2009.
Distinguished Professor Ruthann Robson
RUTHANN ROBSON completed her three-
part series, “Before and After Sappho,”
which interweaves ancient Greek figures
with contemporary writers and legal
controversies. Part One, “Logos” (focus-
ing on Helen of Troy), is now available
at the online journal Trivia: Voices of
Feminism; Part Two, “Eudaemonia”
(focusing on Artemis), is now published
in Law and Literature; and Part Three,
“Demokratia” (centering on Antigone),
appears in the law and literature issue of
Stetson Law Review. In November 2009,
she organized and moderated the Third
Annual Distinguished Professor Conver-
sation, “Translating Equality,” at CUNY
School of Law, with JENNY RIVERA and
poet and Queens College Distinguished
Professor Kimiko Hahn. The conversa-
tion will be published in the New York
City Law Review. Robson spoke at the
AALS panel “On the Cutting Edge: Chart-
ing the Future of Sexual Orientation and
Gender Identity Scholarship” in January
and at the Lavender Law Conference in

September 2009. Robson continues to
work on a three-volume, edited anthol-
ogy on global sexuality and law issues
for Ashgate Publishers and a forthcom-
ing book on sexuality and democracy
for Cambridge University Press. She
also continues to comment on the Con-
stitutional Law Prof Blog.  New York.
FRANKLIN SIEGEL and three co-counsel to
the class in Handschu v. Special Services
Division received a ruling in January
2010 concluding their challenge to a
2004 NYPD policy allowing police to
videotape and photograph participants
at lawful demonstrations and political
gatherings. U.S. District Judge Charles S.
Haight reaffirmed that the NYPD must
follow the Modified Handschu Guide-
lines, part of a court decree protecting
First Amendment expression in New
York City from unauthorized Police
Department political surveillance.
RICHARD STORROW’s essay, “The Right to
Procreate,” was published in The Child:
An Encyclopedic Companion by the
University of Chicago Press (2009). He
also appeared on the National Adoption
Day edition of the Bronx Legal televi-
sion show to discuss adoption law in
LILIANA YANEZ appeared on CUNY TV in
November 2009 to discuss the implications
of a new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Service policy for temporary workers.
DEBBIE ZALESNE and DAVID NADVORNEY
coauthored the article “Why Don’t They
Get It? Academic Intelligence and the
Under-Prepared Student as Other,” which
was accepted for publication by the
Journal of Legal Education. Zalesne and
Nadvorney presented their paper “Making
Academics Explicit: An Integrated Skills/
Doctrine Contracts Syllabus,” at the Fifth
International Conference on Contracts in
Facult y • NOTES
February. Zalesne was also on the Steer-
ing Committee for that conference.
STEVE ZEIDMAN assisted with an amicus
brief filed on behalf of the plaintiffs in
the New York Civil Liberties Union law-
suit, Hurrell-Harring v. New York, against
New York State, alleging systemic, state-
wide violations of the right to counsel.
He drafted the law professors’ statement
of interest for the brief and collected
signatories from faculty members across
the state. He served as a moderator at the
Department of Justice National Sym-
posium on Indigent Defense, “Looking
Back, Looking Forward, 2000–2010,”
in Washington, D.C. Zeidman was also
selected, with ANDREA MCARDLE and JOE
ROSENBERG, to participate in and present
at the Experiential Renaissance Round-
table, “Challenges in Constructing and
Reconstructing Experiential Education
Programs,” at the University of Minne-
sota Law School in April. ••
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