Cornell Law Forum Spring 2017 by Cornell Law School

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CORNELL LAW FORUM

Myron Taylor Hall Ithaca, New York 14853-4901

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Th e C o r n e l l Te c h L L . M . :

Cornell Law School’s Own Startup on Roosevelt Island, NYC

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Spring 2017 James Grimmelmann Straddles the Law-Tech Divide Karen Comstock, the Law School’s First Public Service Dean, Retires Stanley Mailman ’52: Immigration Law Loses a Pioneer Spring 2017

Launch of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide Law School Celebrates Allan R. Tessler’s Birthday

CORNELL LAW

A Cornell Law scholarship allowed me to pursue a profession that I truly love. For the first time, I have a real sense of direction in my professional life and a vision for my career. This would not be possible without the financial support from my scholarship. The Cornell Law scholarship also provided encouragement and motivation. It was more than money; it was a message from the school and its alumni that I had the potential to do well in the legal field.

Making It New: Naming Opportunities Available for New Spaces in Hughes Hall

The lower levels of Hughes Hall are being converted into modern spaces essential to the fulfillment of the Law Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s educational mission.

We invite Cornell Law alumni and friends to participate in making Hughes Hall new again through a gift that will help us translate vision into reality.

Naming opportunities are available at many levels for a variety of prominent spaces.

For more Information: www.hugheshall.law.cornell.edu or (607) 255-3373

Scholarship support allowed Gargi to excel at Cornell, secure a job at a top firm in a competitive market, and believe that she could become a leader in the legal field.

Gargi Chaudhuri JD/MBA Candidate, 2018, Cornell University BA, 2014, Harvard University Activities: Cornell Law Society for Reproductive Justice, Treasurer South Asian Law Students Association, Academic Chair Langfan First-Year Moot Court Tournament, Round of 16 International Refugee Assistance Program, Team Member

FORUM Spring 2017

Volume 43, No. 1

A Note from the Dean

Cornell Law School’s Own Startup: A New Degree in Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship by

CHRISTOPHER BROUWER

Karen Comstock, the Law School’s First Public Service Dean, Retires by

IAN MCGULLAM

Stanley Mailman ’52: Immigration Law Loses a Pioneer by

IAN MCGULLAM

Pro fi l e s

Thomas A. Russo, J.D./M.B.A. ’69, Shares His Ingredients for Success

Nadine Thornton, J.D./M.B.A. ’16 Delves into Complex Communities

Jerome Goldberg, M.B.A. ’63/J.D. ’64, Combines Business and Law in a Diverse Career

Bri e fs

Launch of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide

Law School Celebrates Allan R. Tessler’s Birthday

Two Victories for Asylum Clinic

What’s Wrong with the First Amendment? Shiffrin’s New Book Celebrated at the Law School

Rhodes Public Interest Fellow Mario Roque ’17 Targets School Segregation

“Dear Sirs”: Megan Castellano ’11 Takes on Male-Centric Language in the Legal Field

Law School Dean Emeritus Roger Cramton Passes Away

Fac ul ty S c hol a rs hi p

Alum n i

Law School Annual Fund Thrives

Naming Gifts Build Cornell Law School

Diener Shares Stories About Entrepreneurship and COVER:

Rendering by Kilograph

Social Responsibility at Curia Dinner

Alumni and Students Honored at 12th Annual Exemplary Public Service Awards

FROM THE DEAN

across these same categories. But that sense is also a fragile one that requires our constant effort to sustain.

Dear Alumni and Friends:

Every day, it seems, we read about countries around the world turning inward, away from international engagement. In these times, it is more important than ever that the Cornell Law School community reaffirm its commitment to its core values of inclusion and global engagement. Cornell Law School is a global community made up of students, alumni, faculty, and staff of every conceivable background. We hail from dozens of countries. We are Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, atheists, and more. I myself am the child of a refugee. My wife, now an American citizen, was born in India. Communities like ours—diverse across a broad range of categories and committed to respectful engagement across that diversity—are all too rare. Our sense of community is a precious achievement in a country that seems so divided

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On January 27, 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13769, titled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States. The suddenness of the order and the confusion accompanying its roll-out generated anxiety that reverberated well beyond those

to Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII) to inform themselves. To be precise, 323,455 individuals logged onto the LII’s website on Monday and 432,336 visited on Tuesday. These are the site’s second- and thirdhighest visitor volumes in a 24-hour period, surpassed only by traffic after the Supreme Court decision on Bush v. Gore in 2000. Read more at bit.ly/LIIvisits

immediately affected by it. In the midst of that confusion, Cornell Law School sprang into action. The LII Was Flooded with Visits Following Executive Order

On Monday and Tuesday, January 30 and 31, as the public scrambled to understand and respond to the executive order many turned

Professor Yale-Loehr Provided Expert Commentary and Opinion

In the wake of the Executive Order, as controversy swirled and protests broke out across the country, Professor Steven Yale-Loehr was in high demand among media outlets worldwide, including the New York Times, CNN, and CBS News. With over thirty years of immigration law practice, teaching, and

writing, Yale-Loehr is one of the foremost experts on U.S. immigration law. His even-handed and measured commentary helped inform the national conversation that unfolded. Legal Representation for Cornell Students

In the days following the executive order, Cornell Law School worked closely with the University to monitor and address the evolving situation. The Law School arranged to provide free legal consultations to Cornell students concerned about their legal rights under the executive order. Specifically, Professors Beth Lyon, Steven Yale-Loehr, Sital Kalantry, and Estelle McGee agreed to consult with concerned students about their legal options, represent them if they need to seek waivers from the order’s restrictions, and be available by telephone during student arrivals at U.S. ports of entry. In addition, a dedicated team of Cornell Law School faculty also promised to provide legal representation for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students in potential deportation proceedings, should the need arise. Read more at bit.ly/CUlegal

Embracing Diversity of Viewpoint

With all of the stress and chaos of the recent election season, it is important to remember that Cornell Law School’s commitment to diversity and inclusion includes a commitment to diversity of belief and viewpoint. Earlier this semester, I spoke at a Federalist Society event about the need to welcome diverse viewpoints within the Law School community. I assured them that the Law School would never intervene to prevent a student group from inviting a speaker to campus, and I reminded the students that disruption of speakers is both unprofessional and in violation of University policy. (Fortunately, we have had no problems with this sort of conduct at Cornell Law School in recent years.) At the same time, I shared my hope that Cornell Law student organizations would not invite intellectually shallow provocateurs who aim only to shock and offend, but rather would bring to our community intelligent thinkers with diverse points of view who pursue the truth through reasoned discourse. The Federalist Society’s commitment to open debate—which is

The Law School’s culture of civility and collegiality has served us well during these polarized times.

embodied in its admirable practice of asking liberal commentators to respond to conservative speakers it invites to campus—is one from which we can all learn. Although our student body and faculty includes some Trump supporters as well as many who “feel the Bern,” I am proud to say that

Cornell Law School’s culture of civility and collegiality has served us well during these polarized times.

Eduardo M. Peñalver Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law law.dean@cornell.edu

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Cornell Law School’s Own Startup:

A New Degree in Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship by

CHRISTOPHER BROUWER

RENDERING

PHOTOGRAPHY

L I N D S AY F R A N C E , J A S O N KO S K I , J E F F W E I N E R

and

ROBERT BARKER

KILOGRAPH

Three stories above the corner of 8th Ave. and W. 16th St., in the massive Google building in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, a revolution in legal education is underway.

t’s January 26, 2017, the second day of spring-semester classes at the Cornell Tech campus. A low hum of energy turns to a steady buzz as graduate students spill out of their midafternoon classes into the sun-filled open area known as the Studio. Snippets of excited conversation cascade through the loft-like space. Reconnections are made after a long winter break. Surveying the scene, you might never know that among this throng of technologists, designers, engineers, and business students are the twelve pioneering members of Cornell Law School’s and Cornell Tech’s new Master of Laws (LLM) in Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship. These aspiring tech lawyers have come from the United States and around the world, from a diverse array of backgrounds, to form the inaugural class of this first-of-its-kind program. The Cornell Tech LLM, as it’s known for short, was created for practicing attorneys or recent grads who want to acquire the cutting-edge lawyering skills they’ll need to succeed in the fastmoving tech world. As the students, professors, and alumni who are involved in the program will tell you, the Cornell Tech LLM goes far beyond the boundaries of your typical law school experience. It’s not just innovative; it’s downright disruptive. “The Tech LLM program teaches the law in a way that is just not taught in other law schools or other law programs,” says

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Our law students work together with business-people and technologists as part of business and technology teams. They don’t simply learn how to represent clients or work with clients, they actually become part of the client. We think that’s a valuable way to understand client needs and pressures, particularly in the tech world. — Charles Whitehead

The temporary home of Cornell Tech at the Google building in New York City. CENTER: The southern tip of Roosevelt Island, permanent home of Cornell Tech. ABOVE AND BELOW:

Oskar Liivak

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Charles Whitehead, the Myron C. Taylor Alumni Professor of Business Law and director of the Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship Program at Cornell Tech. “We go a step further. Our law students work together with businesspeople and technologists as part of business and technology teams. They don’t simply learn how to represent clients or work with clients, they actually become part of the client. We think that’s a valuable way to understand client needs and pressures, particularly in the tech world.”

At the heart of the Cornell Tech curriculum is the Studio experience—Product Studio in the fall and Startup Studio in the spring semester—in which students gain first-hand, real-world experience in the product development process. Every student here participates in these intensive, collaborative, and empowering programs. Students work as part of cross-disciplinary project teams to solve real technology and business problems. To Leland Rechis, who runs the Product Studio and who’s worked with tech companies from Google to Kickstarter, law students are an essential ingredient of the interdisciplinary brew. He’s been impressed by the leadership role of the new Tech Law students. “A large percentage of them have been leaders in the class and leaders in thinking and really understanding the creative solutions to “How might we …?” questions and product development,” he says. “They’ve really been some of the most engaged students in the class.” “I was in a [Product Studio] team with two engineers and an MBA student,” says Matthew Stichinsky ’13 —the lone Cornell Law alum among the inaugural class. “It’s a great experience that you don’t get in law school at all,” he says. “Understanding more about the overall business and tech world, and not just practice in this bubble of law, is incredibly helpful.” It’s the blending of the experiential and multidisciplinary into one curriculum that makes the Tech LLM so revolutionary, says Eduardo M. Peñalver, the Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law. “The reason I think it only exists at Cornell Law School is that no one else has something like Cornell Tech,” says Peñalver. “It enables groups of students from different disciplines to work together on an actual project. You have to have all those pieces, the business piece, the engineering or computer science piece, and the law piece to make it work.” Whitehead agrees that, although a number of programs at other universities combine technology and the law, there was a real need for a program that could develop a new type of lawyer, with the legal expertise, business acumen and familiarity with technology necessary to lead and support tech companies.

So, the critical value comes from the fact that we’re not providing legal advice from outside, we’re not providing advice that a general counsel would give, we are providing legal advice from the inside, in the form of the design of the architecture of products. This is unique. — Johanan Ottensooser

…there really was no other program out there that is like this one. — Max Peterson

“What we are trying to do is take the students from being lawyers to being tech lawyers,” says James Grimmelmann, the first faculty hire for the Cornell Tech LLM program. For this to happen, notes Grimmelmann, we need to teach them “how to be a problem spotter in advance, how to work out creative solutions to complex problems with a lot of moving parts, and how to develop a comfort with open-ended environments. And it involves some very intensive legal, regulatory, and technological product knowledge.”

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The Roosevelt Island Tramway, which connects Roosevelt Island to the Upper East Side of Manhattan; Tech Law students (L to R) LeMar Moore, Max Paterson, and Alex Felix; and Tech Law student Elizabeth Ragavanis. CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW:

James Grimmelmann Straddles the Law-Tech Divide by

IAN MCGULLAM

Cornell hired James Grimmelmann as a law professor, but it got a translator in the bargain. When the first cohort of students in Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School’s new joint LL.M. program arrived in class this fall, they found in Grimmelmann someone who could speak the language of both students who dream of becoming the Notorious RBG, and those whose idol looks more like Mark Zuckerberg. Grimmelmann studies the intersections between computers and the law, and what each side has to teach the other. A former Microsoft programmer, he’s currently exploring ways of looking at copyright law through a computer science lens —in particular, figuring out how to quantify the expression in artistic work, and the similarities between different works. Grimmelmann says that tech-industry insiders already think about copyright this way: don’t worry about the aesthetics, just compare the code. “I think it’s helpful for the legal system to bring in the perspective of how people who are actually involved in implementing things work with it,” he says. “This is a general principle for my work, which is that computer science is incredibly pragmatic. It’s about getting computers to do things. That pragmatic approach to deep questions sidesteps the philosophical issues and just says, ‘What can we do?’” The new LL.M. in Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship is a one-year interdisciplinary whirlwind that teaches lawyers how to navigate the digital economy. “Looking forward, we see tremendous interest and growth in the intersection of law and technology, both in legal practice on the business side and among current students and scholars,” says Eduardo M. Peñalver, the Allan R. Tessler Dean

and Professor of Law. “The program really plants us very firmly in this emerging field in a really unique interdisciplinary environment at Cornell Tech that no one else can replicate.” The joint LL.M. program is based on Cornell Tech’s New York City campus, putting it at the epicenter of the U.S. law profession. One facet of Grimmelmann’s work involves teasing out an analogy between computer code and legal texts. “If you think about a statute that says don’t speed, it’s like a computer program—it’s a piece of text that does something in the world,” he says. “Even incredibly complicated programs have definite determinate behaviors. That fact seems to suggest that there’s a possibility of language that doesn’t require onthe-spot discretion,” Grimmelmann adds. “This is really interesting as a theoretical matter, about how should we think about judging and writing legal texts, but it also tells us something about which features of the legal system can be delegated to machines. Could you have automated enforcement of rules against market manipulation as simple as an algorithm to spot suspicious trades and automatically declare them illegal?”

deeply interested in technology,” Grimmelmann says excitedly. “These are engineering students who are building things that are going to have massive policy implications. This is a really great moment for doing things that aren’t held back by traditional boundaries.” “The basic premise of the Law Tech program is to look at the intersection of law, technology, and entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship defined broadly in terms of innovation and different business models, and that’s precisely the area that Professor Grimmelmann focuses on,” says Charles Whitehead, the Myron C. Taylor Alumni Professor of Business Law and director of the new program. “He spans multiple constituencies and he works in multiple spaces within the Cornell Tech platform. He does technology, he does the Internet, he does cybersecurity, and of course he’s focused on the law. And those are all areas that play quite well not only in the law program, but also in the other nonlaw programs at Cornell Tech.” Law students without a strong technical background shouldn’t be intimidated at the sight of computer code—Grimmelmann says they’re already well equipped to get up to speed. “With lawyers, they learn new areas and new fact patterns all the time for cases,” he says. “Learning tech is no different. It just requires the commitment to do it, and the humility to accept that you have to put in the work.”

Cornell Tech provides the perfect venue for someone wrestling with these liminal questions. “These are law students who are actually

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A Veteran Tech Lawyer Champions the Program

One of the biggest boosters for the Tech LLM is David Schellhase ’90. Currently general counsel for Slack Technologies, Schellhase has worked at five other tech companies, most notably Salesforce.com and Groupon. He was a key figure with whom Whitehead, Peñalver, and others consulted while planning the new Tech Law program. And, as someone who has worked on technology-related issues his whole career, Schellhase says he is not aware of any other program where law, technology, and innovation intersect in this way. “When those come together,” he says, “sparks fly.”

On January 27, Schellhase got to share his enthusiasm with hundreds of Law School alumni. He was the speaker and moderator at an event devoted to the new Tech LLM at the Alumni Association’s New York Annual Luncheon, this year the largest alumni turnout ever. The event featured ten of the twelve Tech Law students, who joined him on stage for an enlightening question-and-answer session. Schellhase told his audience there are three distinct properties that set the program far apart from anything else: energy, enthusiasm, and practicality. “If you go to the ‘campus’ right now in the Google building, you feel this crackle of energy the minute you walk in and during classes, and in the way people interact,” says Schellhase. “It’s actually fantastic.” Pioneering student Elizabeth Ragavanis exudes the enthusiasm that Schellhase highlighted. She is passionate about technology and about the program. To her, its most compelling feature is the diversity “in the people, ideas, and experiences we are getting.” A former transactional lawyer for small business owners, Ragavanis adds, “We are connected to the startup scene in a way that can only happen in New York. There is an energy about New York and it is dynamic in a way that being where we are is a huge advantage.” Classmate Max Paterson can vouch for the practicality of the program. It’s a big reason he applied. A Canadian lawyer who did IP negotiations for the Canadian government, he wanted to transition from public service into the private sector. “Knowing I needed to network a bit more, and I needed an opportunity to work with a wide variety of people,” he says, “there really was no other program out there that is like this one.”

Building the Program

The story of how the Cornell Tech LLM came to fruition is one of convergence and synergy, dogged determination, and daring to try something different.

As Whitehead set out to build a new program and a new curriculum, he consulted with top tech lawyers from around the country. His mission was to find out what subjects would be most relevant to a lawyer practicing in the tech and entrepreneurship areas, including in a company or in a law firm specializing in technology and new businesses. From these early conversations he recruited a small army of some of the leading experts in the area. At this point, he’s had over twenty lawyers from eleven different law firms lecture on a range of issues and documents relating to technology and high-growth corporate transactions. These lawyers also provide valuable mentoring to the student teams in the Product Studio and Startup Studio on legal issues related to their projects. Whitehead notes that roughly half of the adjuncts so far have some sort of Cornell connection. And there was also a critical need to build-out the full-time IP and internet faculty on campus. “When I got the email from Oskar Liivak saying ‘Hey, we’re starting a Cornell Tech law program. Are you interested?’ I just forwarded the email to my wife with nothing more than an exclamation point,” says James Grimmelmann. The “Oskar” to whom he refers is Cornell Law Professor Oskar Liivak, who was part of the team—including Whitehead, Peñalver, and others—trying to build a world-class program at Cornell Tech. One of their priorities was to find a leader in tech law and convince that person to join the upstart program. Fortunately, they found a more-than-willing candidate in Grimmelmann. When he began teaching a decade ago, says Grimmelmann, his dream job would have been halfway between law and computer science. The former Microsoft programmer notes that he’s always had an interest in technology law, but with an equal emphasis on the technology side. “Unfortunately, such a job didn’t exist when I started teaching,” he says. “It’s huge,” says Peñalver of having Grimmelmann on board. “He’s a star in the field and one of the very few people who has as strong an understanding of the technology as he does of the law. James is absolutely comfortable in both worlds and is great at translating between those two worlds.” LeMar Moore made his way to Cornell Tech after taking “one look at the description of the program, the class schedule,

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We are connected to the startup scene in a way that can only happen in New York. There is an energy about New York and it is dynamic in a way that being where we are is a huge advantage. — Elizabeth Ragavanis

I thought this was the perfect place to bridge the gap between all of my interests. Then, of course, the Cornell name made it less of a risk in deciding to come to a brand-new program. — Jaimie Wolman

If you go to the ‘campus’ right now in the Google building, you feel this crackle of energy the minute you walk in and during classes, and in the way people interact. It’s actually fantastic. — David Schellhase ’90

and some of the features and thinking ‘Wow, this is the perfect opportunity to be at the forefront of developments in law and tech.’” His choice to attend wasn’t without slight trepidation. “It definitely took a leap of faith,” says the NYU Law grad of his career pivot after nearly five years practicing commercial litigation. Matthew Stichinsky’s journey to Cornell Tech began in 2015, when a partner at his firm, Simpson Thacher, bought a table at the Alumni Association’s New York Annual Luncheon. It was there, listening to Dean Peñalver speak about plans for the new program, that Stichinksy had his “aha” moment. He admits to having a little anxiety when it came to applying. “Partly because it was brand new,” he says, “partly because practicing as a lawyer can give you a general sense of caution.” However, Whitehead put him in touch with David Schellhase and Stephane Levy, a partner at Cooley, who helped ease any doubts he had. “Having people like that go out of their way to support this program,” he says, “gave me a sense that this was something real.”

Jaimie Wolman joined the Tech Law program directly from Cardozo Law School in order “to build greater expertise and to distinguish herself as a technology lawyer.” Having developed an interest in fashion and technology—specifically wearable tech—in law school, Wolman was especially drawn to the interdisciplinary offerings of the program.

“I thought this was the perfect place to bridge the gap between all of my interests,” she says. “Then, of course, the Cornell name made it a less of a risk in deciding to come to a brandnew program.” “Whenever you introduce a new degree, like the Tech LLM, into an existing program, like Cornell Tech, you become a little concerned,” says Whitehead. “Will it integrate well? Will the new students work well with existing students and existing programs? Ours has been as seamless as it possibly could be.”

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:

Student teams in a Product Studio class; Charles Whitehead, director of the Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship Program; Leland Rechis, head of Product Studio; and Tech Law student Philipp Fontaine.

How an Art Lawyer Found a Home at Cornell Tech

It was exactly 10:30 a.m. on January 21, 2016, when Liz Weber opened an e-mail that would change the course of her life. The note wasn’t from a long-lost friend or a family member she hadn’t heard from in years. Instead, it was a LinkedIn message about Cornell Tech’s new Master of Laws in Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship program, slated to start in August. The e-mail couldn’t have come at a better time. At that very moment, she was sitting in her Brooklyn apartment trying to figure out the next step in her life. “It felt like kismet,” she said. The Road to Cornell Tech Weber moved to Brooklyn from her hometown of Miami in July 2015 to pursue a dream of working in art law. A Colorado College art history graduate, she’d spent time after school working in San Francisco at a firm focused on law public relations, linking lawyers and reporters to speak on specialized topics. It was there that she decided she wanted to be a lawyer herself. “You’d never think a background in art history would lend itself to law, but it does,” she said. “In law, there is always room for interpretation, just like in art.” She moved home to Florida and enrolled at the University of Florida’s Fredric G. Levin College of Law. During school, she interned in the legal department of a museum, and then at a fitness company, but ultimately “realized that if I wanted to be serious about art law,

I had to be in New York City—one of the art capitals of the world.” So, after graduating, she took the New York bar exam and moved to Brooklyn with the goal of joining a boutique art law firm. When that proved a difficult world to break into, she started writing for the Center for Art Law as part of a postgraduate fellowship. A Focus on Tech The fellowship brought to Weber’s attention the challenges that artists and gallery owners regularly confront in the realm of technology. For example, artists who work with new media often struggle to copyright their work—and some contend with major intellectual property issues. Meanwhile, brickand-mortar galleries that want to break into the online space grapple with how to go about it. While the lens of technology interested Weber, she wasn’t sure how it applied to her background— that is, not until she received the LinkedIn message from Cornell Tech, advertising a tech-centric program for lawyers.

Jumping into School Weber contemplated Cornell Tech for only a few days before applying. Part of the interview process required her to come up with an idea for a start-up that solves a real-life issue. She had just twentyfour hours to prepare. “I came up with an idea for an online copyright registration and enforcement platform,” she explained. “It can be hard for emerging artists to understand intellectual property and know how to protect themselves. I pitched a company that would help them. “It was so much fun to pitch [director of Cornell Tech’s LL.M. program] Chuck Whitehead. I felt like joy was flowing out of me.” Weber was accepted into the program and is now a full-time student. She says she’s deeply impressed with the caliber of students involved, the career opportunities presented, and the depth of the material covered so far. What’s next? Weber isn’t sure yet. “I’m trying to focus on my courses and meeting people on campus, then I’ll go from there. Honestly, sometimes I look around campus and I have to pinch myself because I’m so glad I found this place.”

“It was pretty crazy,” she says. “I felt like my background up to that point was pushing me there.”

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We are able to work hand in hand with engineers and students in the MBA program and thus, are able to gain unique insight into the different obstacles a startup can face. More important, we’re able to experience first hand how our legal background can help resolve so many of these issues.

In addition to working with engineers and business students with different backgrounds, everybody here brings a different perspective. In every class someone different is raising their hand and taking the class in a different great direction by what they can add to it. — David Eklund

Everyone else is realizing how important lawyers are in this ecosystem. — Jayna Patel

Looking Forward

The launch of the new LLM at Cornell Tech is both groundbreaking and a profound opportunity. Now, for the first time, the Law School has a physical presence in New York City, a winning trifecta that places it at the nexus of a burgeoning tech scene, in the middle of the highest concentration of Law School alumni, and at the center of the legal universe. The possibility of harnessing the synergy of these different forces is what has many in the alumni community excited for the future. After all, Cornell Tech is still in its infancy and has a lot of growing yet to do.

Soon the campus will move from its temporary Chelsea location to its permanent home on Roosevelt Island. From this thin strip of land in the East River, an ultramodern, open-architecture campus is slowly rising to face the skyline of East Manhattan. When it opens in the summer of 2017, there will be new public

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space, buildings comprising approximately 710,000 square feet, and an academic community that is expected to grow over time to nearly 600 people. With this rapid growth, notes former Dean Stewart Schwab, part of the challenge will be managing expectations. “If we do this right, this will be the premiere place in the country to combine law, tech, and entrepreneurship,” says Schwab, who was part of the early planning for Cornell Tech and teaches in the Tech LLM program. “There is a gigantic buzz. A lot of people see how exciting this is. And they’re right. But, people need to remember, it’s still just beginning. You don’t build a whole campus overnight.” As Cornell Tech moves into this next phase, plans are in the works to expand the Law School’s offerings by allowing JD students to take courses at the new campus. On March 24, the Law School announced the launch of a Program in Information and Tech-

The reason I think it only exists at Cornell Law School is that no one else has something like Cornell Tech. It enables groups of students from different disciplines to work together on an actual project. You have to have all those pieces, the business piece, the engineering or computer science piece, and the law piece to make it work. — Eduardo M. Peñalver

The Studio When Studio classes kick off in the fall, the open space at Cornell Tech transforms into a churning sea of activity. Techno jargon flies as multidisciplinary student teams— equipped with sticky notes, colored stickers, markers and pens—huddle around whiteboards. This hive of activity is set in motion by business challenges that have been posed by leading startups, companies, and organizations in New York City. In the fall semester’s Product Studio, students develop and present new products, services, and strategies that respond to the company challenges. These challenges always take the form of “How might we?” questions. For example, LLM student Adam Felix’s team took up a challenge posed by Merck: How might we use blockchain technology to overcome our data-sharing bottleneck in healthcare? “Over the course of the semester,” says Felix, “we were able to develop our own blockchain network and were able to share medical records on demand, under full control of the patient, and fully compliant with HIPAA and other laws regulating the healthcare sector. It was pretty challenging, but it was a great thing to do.”

nology Law at Cornell Tech. Beginning in the spring semester of 2018, up to twenty Cornell Law School JD students will be able to spend a semester taking courses related to technology law at the Roosevelt Island campus in New York City. According to Grimmelmann, a semester at Cornell Tech could give a big boost to JD students thinking of becoming tech lawyers. “You start them in that socialization to becoming tech lawyers before they start off down other paths. You get them introduced early to the professional demands and the needs of their clients. It moves at a different pace. You are really getting them comfortable with how the tech community thinks.”

In Startup Studio in the spring, students learn how to self-organize into startup teams, identify and refine a good product idea, pitch it to investors, and bring it to market. According to Rechis, the Studio experience encourages students to “embrace ambiguity and then out of the ambiguity have a point of view that they can validate with other people and then iterate on. This has worked really well with the LLM students. They’ve completely embraced that system. They are dealing with so much information they have to figure out how to form an argument around all this information. I think that bodes very well for what we are teaching in the class.”

Peñalver sees Cornell Tech as a model for how law can be taught in other areas. “I definitely think that this experiential, interdisciplinary model is one that has broad advantages. We are exploring ways to do more of it, and I think it is likely to grow.” n

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Karen Comstock, the Law School’s First Public Service Dean, Retires by

IAN MCGULLAM

PHOTOGRAPHY

ILLUSTRATION

CHRIS KITCHEN

and

DA - VO O DA

and

ROBIN AWES EVERETT

S H E RY L D. S I N KOW

When Karen Comstock was a law student, she knew she wanted to use her degree as a tool for progressive change. The obvious paths could have led her to a public defender’s office or a rights watchdog, but Comstock had another idea.

left a thirteen-year legacy that touched both students and alumni whose hearts were set on public interest work, and the Law School as a whole.

y mentors were community organizers,” Comstock said. “I guess I have more of an organizer’s mentality than a lawyer’s mentality, in the sense of leveraging available resources for a good purpose. And I thought, law schools, especially Ivy League law schools, have a lot of resources, not only in terms of money, but also in terms of smart people. How can I get in that environment and try to implement change?” She figured it out. When Comstock stepped down on March 1 as Cornell Law School’s first assistant dean for public service, she

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Comstock has spent her entire career guiding law students toward public interest work, although it wasn’t always in her job description: when she graduated from the University at Buffalo School of Law, The State University of New York, in 1989, it wasn’t common for law schools to have dedicated administrators for that job. After spending five years as Brooklyn Law School’s first public interest coordinator, she moved up to Cornell in 1994 to work in career services, eventually becoming the assistant dean in charge of the office. Even as her mandate included the whole range of career services, though, she says she always had “sort of an unofficial partial focus on public service,” bolstered by her pre– law school experience working for the likes of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and the Office of Senate Legal Counsel. In 2004, as Stewart J. Schwab was settling in as the new Allan R. Tessler Dean of the Law School, Comstock came to his office with a proposal to make that focus official and create a distinct Office of Public Service. Times had changed: many of the Law School’s peers already had public service deans, and student activists were calling for Cornell to follow suit. Schwab didn’t take much convincing, but wanted to make sure the office didn’t

When Comstock stepped down on March 1 as Cornell Law Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first assistant dean for public service, she left a thirteen-year legacy that touched both students and alumni whose hearts were set on public interest workâ&#x20AC;Ś

The 2014 Cornell Law School Public Service Awards

Karen Comstock with Shannon Minter ‘93, a 2008 Public Service Award winner

One of Comstock’s highest-profile projects has been organizing the Cornell Law School Public Service Awards… The awards, and other annual programs run by Comstock, like the Public Interest Academy and the Cyrus Mehri Public Interest Lecture Series, let students interested in going into nonprofit or government work network with seasoned practitioners and get an idea of the rewards and challenges that await them.

just become a hideout for the relatively few students determined to go into nonprofit or government work. “My main request to her was that I wanted her to think of herself as serving all of the students of the Law School,” said Schwab, now the Jonathan and Ruby Zhu Professor of Law. “The law is a service profession, and regardless of what job or series of jobs you do, you should view it that way. I think Karen has really done an excellent job of being the assistant dean for public service for all the students, and encouraging the attitude of service regardless of what they’re going to be doing.” One of Comstock’s highest-profile projects has been organizing the Cornell Law School Public Service Awards. Every year since 2007, in a ceremony in New York City the Law School has honored alumni doing public interest work. Cyrus Mehri ’88, a founding partner at Mehri & Skalet, who has worked closely with Comstock over the years to promote interest in public service at Cornell, was recognized in 2014 for his work winning major racial and gender discrimination settlements against some of the nation’s biggest corporations. “The best part of it was the comradery with the other award winners,” Mehri says. “Everyone

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is quietly working hard to open doors to those that don’t have access to the legal system. And then to be there with the other award winners, that was a great experience.” The awards, and other annual programs run by Comstock, like the Public Interest Academy and the Cyrus Mehri Public Interest Lecture Series, let students interested in going into nonprofit or government work network with seasoned practitioners and get an idea of the rewards and challenges that await them. An important part of Comstock’s job has also been making sure students who are interested in public service careers can afford to pursue them. She administered financial assistance programs for students and alumni working to advance the common good, including several fellowships for unpaid summer internships and the Frank H.T. Rhodes Public Interest Law Fellowship, founded on her watch, which annually funds a Cornell Law School graduate’s public interest project for two years after graduation. She’s also made loan repayment assistance for alumni working in low-paying public interest jobs a priority. “One of the things we worked on right after I became dean, and Karen was really instrumental in this, was revamping our loan-forgiveness program

Karen Comstock with students

to make it more comprehensive—and from the standpoint of the students more generous and easier to understand—so that students looking forward to their career path could plan around that,” said Eduardo M. Peñalver, the Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law. Despite the demands of her office’s more visible initiatives, getting to know individual students has been a key part of Comstock’s job. “The large programming is nice to impart bigpicture information, but when it comes down to a particular individual with their particular interests and issues around where they want to live and what their loan debt is, individual counseling is absolutely the best,” Comstock said. One alumna who was a regular in Comstock’s office was Amanda Reynoso-Palley ’16, a Rhodes Fellow who is currently working with the nonprofit group Day One to combat intimate partner violence among New York City high school students. “She made Cornell a welcoming place for me since I started,” Reynoso-Palley said. “I remember being nervous the first time I went to talk to her about the search for 1L summer internships, but she was so kind and welcoming, after that first meeting I knew I could always go to her with problems or simply ask for her advice.” Even though she’s retiring, Comstock isn’t planning on quitting public interest work altogether. She’ll be sticking around in Ithaca, and plans to throw herself into her work on the board of the Friendship Donations Network, a nonprofit organization that rescues fresh food that would otherwise be thrown away and redirects it to food pantries.

I remember being nervous the first time I went to talk to her about the search for 1L summer internships, but she was so kind and welcoming, after that first meeting I knew I could always go to her with problems or simply ask for her advice. — Amanda Reynoso-Palley ’16

There might be some more overt political activism in her future, too—the community-organizer instinct dies hard. “With the new administration, I plan to be pretty active,” Comstock says, “because I just can’t not.” n

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Stanley Mailman ’52:

Immigration Law Loses a Pioneer by

IAN MCGULLAM

I LLUSTRATION

JEAN TUTTLE

Immigration law lost one of its greats in December with the passing of Stanley Mailman ’52. Born in 1930, Mailman played a hand in the evolution of immigration practice over more than half a century, as a president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), an incisive legal commentator, and a dedicated champion of pro bono representation.

immigration law whom Mailman first encountered while earning an LL.M. at New York University. Mailman was subsequently hired by Fried for his first job practicing law, and quickly rose to partner. Over the rest of his career, Mailman practiced business immigration law in New York City, first heading his own firm and then joining Satterlee Stephens Burke & Burke. He remained a partner at that larger firm for more than twenty years, and of counsel for a further five, before Mailman’s declining health forced him to stop his practice at age eighty-five.

e was a pioneer in many ways. He did everything,” said Cornell Law School professor Stephen W. Yale-Loehr ’81, who coauthored Immigration Law and Practice, the twentyone-volume comprehensive treatise in the field, with Mailman. “Everything he did, he tried to do his best. He had a high standard that helped to elevate the immigration bar generally.” Mailman came of age as an immigration lawyer in the 1950s, when the area was beginning to expand in the wake of World War II and the passage of the first comprehensive immigration law in 1952. He was a disciple of Elmer Fried, an early scholar of

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Mailman’s early years primed him for a lifetime representing people who sought a better life in the United States. His parents were both Eastern European Jews who had emigrated to the United States, and Mary Ann Mailman, Stanley’s widow, said that “as a son of immigrants, he was a lot more attuned to the plight of immigrants.” Mailman was also marked by his family’s experience during the Holocaust, Mary Ann Mailman said, and as a young man he had been troubled not only by the United States’ failure to admit Jewish refugees, but also by the government’s internment of Japanese Americans and the discrimination against Chinese immigrants in the same period. Mailman came to Cornell as an undergraduate in 1946. In between playing sax in the Big Red Band and participating in the Watermargin co-op, he enrolled in a program allowing

He was a lively presence. — Richard Buxbaum ’52

He always felt that it was better to share info than to hoard it. — Stephen W. Yale-Loehr ’81

Stanley Mailman ’52 as a law student (fourth from left, front row). ABOVE RIGHT: Mary Ann and Stanley Mailman in 2014.

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students to complete their senior year of undergraduate studies and their first year of law school concurrently, earning both a bachelor’s degree and a J.D. On a campus filled with veterans, Mailman fell in with a group who had been too young to serve during World War II. “He was a lively presence,” said University of California, Berkeley School of Law professor emeritus Richard Buxbaum ’52, who remained lifelong friends with Mailman since their Cornell days. “He was always prepared to discuss in class—it was pretty Socratic in most of the classes, but he was

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one of the students who was OK with volunteering when there wasn’t someone being called on. He was well known and well liked. He was a very fresh, sparkly kind of guy. And he also had a nice wry way about him.” “He always talked about certain professors he had at Cornell who helped him develop a code of ethics,” said Mary Ann Mailman. Two of the most influential were the historian and political scientist Clinton Rossiter, whom Mailman encountered as an undergraduate, and the Law School’s Rudolf Schlesinger. A giant of comparative legal scholarship, Schlesinger concentrated on private rather than public law, but his classes gave Mailman a taste of legal issues that touched on the wider world. During his decades of practice, Mailman threw himself into pro bono work on behalf of immigrants and refugees. Notably, in 1981, his legal team won a ruling in Bertrand v. Sava that federal courts could hear habeas corpus claims on behalf of detained Haitian refugees who alleged that they had been improperly denied parole.

serving these individuals pro bono, we should treat them the same as paying clients, no worse, no better. The ‘no better’ part was a fair guideline. The ‘no worse’ part a high standard.” “That was just really a lifechanging experience for Stanley,” said Mary Ann Mailman of Mailman’s work on behalf of the Haitian refugees. “He just felt it was so important for these people who had been thrown into upstate New York prisons far away from their home and family and any legal help.”

Stanley loved the practice of immigration law because it was focused on people, and he treasured all his life the number of people he met, and how important it was to those people to be able to become American citizens. — Mary Ann Mailman

Allan Wernick, a professor at Baruch College and the director of the CUNY Citizenship Now! project, served on a committee of AILA lawyers assembled to assist the Haitian refugees. Wernick recalled that one of the attorneys expressed concern over the difficulty of surmounting language barriers and other obstacles to serving the refugees. “Stanley gave an answer that guides me to this day,” Wernick said. “He said that though we would be

Mailman also felt called to serve others in his profession by sharing his experience, coauthoring Immigration Law and Practice for three decades and writing a New York Law Journal column on immigration law for twenty-five years. Colleagues remember Mailman as a gifted writer who valued both precision and style. “He was sort of like E.B. White,” said Yale-Loehr. “He wrote crisply. He was quick to delete the passive voice, to try to find a turn of phrase, and he always made his own writing and that of anyone he worked with better through his collaboration.” Mailman was also an early adopter of the use of female pronouns as a default in his writing. “He always felt that it was better to share info than to hoard it,” said Yale-Loehr. Mailman was an active mentor, taking under his wing younger lawyers as diverse as Arthur Helton, an advocate for refugees who was killed in the 2003 bombing of the United Nations’ headquarters in Baghdad, and Brenda Berkman, who later successfully sued the New York City Fire Department for gender discrimination over its entrance test and became one of the city’s first female firefighters. “Stanley loved the practice of immigration law because it was focused on people, and he treasured all his life the number of people he met, and how important it was to those people to be able to become American citizens,” Mary Ann Mailman said. “It was an area of law that brought you face to face with the person you were helping. It was for most people a life-changing experience. And as their lawyer, you went through that with them.” n

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PROFILES

Thomas A. Russo, J.D./ M.B.A. ‘69,Shares His Ingredients for Success The National Law Journal named him one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. His legal career spans 45 years, and includes—among other things—a stint as regulator at the Securities and Exchange Commission, partner at a Wall Street law firm, and adjunct

Tom’s resilience and ingenuity in being able to advise Lehman through the financial crisis and then to guide AIG through its post-crisis resurrection is nothing short of remarkable. — Andrew Levander

professor at an Ivy League business school. But Thomas A. Russo, who holds both a J.D. and an M.B.A. from Cornell, is perhaps best known for the time he spent, in his words “strapped into one of the lead cars during the great economic rollercoaster ride of 2008–2015.” He was chief financial officer and general counsel at Lehman Brothers from 1993 until the end of 2008, when the global financial crisis hit and

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the venerable 158-year-old bank—then the fourth largest in the country—was forced to declare bankruptcy after the Federal Reserve declined to rescue it. Then, in 2010 Russo was named executive vice president and general counsel at AIG, a company that the government did bail out, and he helped lead the successful effort to restore it to financial health, while repaying the government’s $182 billion loan as well as a profit of $22 billion. “I was the only person in both [situations],” he notes. About a year before Lehman’s bankruptcy, Russo warned the Group of 30 about a possible

credit crunch that might cause a financial crisis, but his concerns weren’t heeded. In fall 2008, he warned the Fed that if Lehman was forced to go under the impact would cascade through the financial markets, affecting all investors, and the global economy would deteriorate at unprecedented levels. That is pretty much what happened, as we all now know. “[Through] my experiences at Lehman and AIG, I have seen the worst and best of government,” he now comments. “The Fed was the only one that could take and hold those assets long enough to recognize

the value. It’s what it was created to do.” By not doing it for Lehman, it worsened the crisis, he believes. “Tom’s resilience and ingenuity in being able to advise Lehman through the financial crisis and then to guide AIG through its post-crisis resurrection is nothing short of remarkable,” says Andrew Levander, who represented Lehman Brothers in post-bankruptcy litigations and is now a partner in securities litigation at Dechert. Russo grew up on Staten Island, where he ran track in high school, had a ham radio, and liked computer programming. He attended Fordham College, where a professor introduced him to the analytical aspects of economics, which he liked and was good at, prompting him to enroll in Cornell’s joint graduate degree program in law and business. While at Cornell Law School he impressed Professor Harry Henn, who taught corporate law and later invited him back as a guest speaker. Professor Rudy Schlesinger, who taught international law, also made a lasting impression. “He was brilliant and gave life to any subject,” says Russo. After graduation he became an attorney in the Security and Exchange Commission’s division of market regulation. “I had the great opportunity of learning about securities law from the inside out as well as

how a government agency works,” comments Russo. He joined the law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft as an associate in 1971, where he became interested in how to regulate subsidiary markets. He left in 1975 to become deputy general counsel of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, where he served as the first director

ness.” Making more time for family and volunteering became essential to him. Today he readily shares his strategy, which he calls “Ingredients for a Successful Life,” and which also offers guidelines for valuing colleagues at all levels. “Tom has enormous empathy and treats others with dignity and respect,” says Peter Hancock, CEO of AIG.

As partner I found I was working seven days a week around the clock. I learned that to be successful in anything, you must figure out the allocation of time that brings you the greatest happiness. — Thomas A. Russo ‘69

“Ultimately success is being respected as a person, not for the position you hold.” An ardent volunteer, Russo chairs the executive committee of the Institute of International Education, which administers the Fulbright Scholarship Program, and helped found its Scholar Rescue Fund. An adjunct faculty member at Columbia School of Business, he has written or co-written such books as The 2008 Financial Crisis and It’s Aftermath: Addressing the Next Debt Challenge and more than 70 articles on legal issues related to financial market regulation. “My concern is debt is growing, growth has been slow and the tools we had [for averting a future monetary crisis] are diminished—and there’s always a crisis,” warns Russo. He and his wife have twin daughters, now grown, and a son who is a junior at Cornell. ~LINDA BRANDT MYERS

of the CFTC’s Division of Trading and Markets. In 1978 he returned to Cadwalader, where he made partner and became a member of the management committee but decided to leave again in January 1993 to join Lehman. “As partner I found I was working seven days a week around the clock,” comments Russo. “I learned that to be successful in anything, you must figure out the allocation of time that brings you the greatest happi-

“He is a shining example that doing so is not only a recipe for getting business done, but also for contentment in life. To paraphrase his favorite poem, Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If,’ he is able to walk with kings yet not lose the common touch.” At a retirement dinner, Russo was given a laminated copy of that poem with tributes from Lehman co-workers telling him how he had influenced their lives for the better. It was very moving, Russo says.

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PROFILES Nadine Thornton, J.D./ M.B.A. ’16 Delves into Complex Communities

school and to engage in a diverse array of fields,” she recalls.

Nadine Thornton began her path to law school on and around her father’s farm on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. Working with nearby Native American communities, she witnessed the challenges of unemployment and poverty they faced, and was motivated to help find solutions.

She not only benefited from these resources but also contributed to them. As a member of the Native American Law Students Association (NALSA), and its president during her 2L year, Thornton helped plan

“I always believed that creating opportunities for business investment in tribal communities would create sustainable change benefiting people on a fundamental level for years to come,” she says, citing fellow Cornell Law School alum Sharice Davids ’10, who started a successful coffee company and community development corporation on the Pine Ridge Reservation. “The desire to drive investment in such a complex legal and economic environment drove my desire for a J.D./M.B.A.” Thornton was drawn to Cornell, where she could earn a joint J.D./M.B.A. in three years and take advantage of the university’s vast and interconnected resources. “I wanted the opportunity to learn from people in all parts of the

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Two faculty members who supported Thornton’s work on

I always believed that creating opportunities for business investment in tribal communities would create sustainable change benefiting people on a fundamental level for years to come. — Nadine Thornton ‘16

several events. In the spring of 2015, she and former NALSA president Rose Petoskey ’15 organized the Cornell Tribal Economic Development Summit, the first forum of its kind at Cornell. Bankers, lawyers, tribal leaders, politicians, environmentalists, and academics converged to share their perspectives and were joined by students from across the university. Petoskey recalls, “The summit was a great success and featured many Native alums who

are prominent figures in the Indian law and policy world. Nadine has an unparalleled work ethic, and I’m so happy we were able to work together to bring Indian law- and policyfocused events to Cornell Law.”

the summit and also influenced her throughout her experience at Cornell Law School were Gerald Torres, the Jane M. G. Foster Professor of Law, and Charles K. Whitehead, the Myron C. Taylor Alumni Professor of Business Law and director of the Law, Technology and Entrepreneurship Program. Torres, an adviser to NALSA, shared his deep knowledge of Native American issues as a panelist and speaker at a num-

ber of Thornton’s events. Over the summer of her 1L year, Thornton served as a research assistant for Torres’s work on the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law Third: The Law of American Indians. “I always found his insight both challenging and important,” she says. Whitehead guided and supported Thornton as she navigated the J.D./M.B.A. curriculum and explored job opportunities. She recalls, “His mock interview was the toughest I encountered during the 2L recruiting season.” Whitehead also advised her on her work as a fund manager for Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management’s student-run Big Red Venture Fund. “Nadine brought to her work at the Law School, and brings to her career, a remarkable commitment to driving change in underserved communities,” says Whitehead. “She brings an intelligence, diligence, and breadth of interest in business and the law that have quickly made her a formidable force in whatever she pursues. More impressively, she does it with a smile and an ability to work closely with others that make it easy for everyone to work with her.” He adds, “In short, Nadine is a ‘triple threat’—commitment, intelligence, and leadership— and, as both a professor and Cornell alumnus myself,

Thacher, serving Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services (INHS), which provides affordable home ownership and rentals for low- to moderate-income residents. “The role allowed me to contribute to my community using my real estate experience and the legal knowledge I acquired from Cornell Law,” she says. Over the next year, she served as a board observer for INHS. After graduating with her J.D./ M.B.A., Thornton headed back to Simpson Thacher’s Houston office, where she is now a corporate associate working in banking and credit and in mergers and acquisitions. She’s well equipped for the job, thanks in large part to her years at the Law School. someone whom I’m proud to have join the Cornell alumni ranks.” Thornton’s professional career began while she was still an undergrad at Arizona State University. She founded her own real estate–investing business and operated it from 2010 to 2013. As a law student, she spent her 2L summer performing a summer associateship at the Houston, Texas, office of New York firm Simpson Thacher, which, she says, “has given me significant opportunities to give back to the communities I feel most connected to.” There she contributed to a pro bono project involving indigenous individuals in a South Ameri-

can country, engaging with her passion for fair and responsible economic development for tribal peoples. Thornton finished out her summer with a public interest fellowship through Simpson

“Beyond just learning how to think critically, ‘like a lawyer,’ I learned how to draft security agreements, S-1s, and the like, because I took a number of the deals seminars Cornell Law offers,” she notes. “These gave me hands-on practice with tasks that I do now as a Big

Law associate. In addition, Professor Whitehead’s deals course taught me the building blocks of a corporate transactional practice.” Looking ahead, Thornton says, “I want to continue connecting with mentors in many fields and soaking up knowledge, not just from lawyers but from interesting people with many different backgrounds, so I can be the most well-rounded and open-minded version of myself. “Long term, I hope to help drive investment in underserved, underdeveloped, and particularly complex communities such as Indian reservations. I want to contribute to economic development for the benefit of people and the broader societies in which they live.” ~OWEN LUBOZYNSKI

Beyond just learning how to think critically, ‘like a lawyer,’ I learned how to draft security agreements, S-1s, and the like, because I took a number of the deals seminars Cornell Law offers. These gave me hands-on practice with tasks that I do now as a Big Law associate. — Nadine Thornton ‘16

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PROFILES Jerome Goldberg, M.B.A. ’63/J.D. ’64, Combines Business and Law in a Diverse Career The most ambitious project built by the real estate firm Jerome (Jerry) Goldberg, cofounded in southern Maine nearly three decades ago almost never happened. When Goldberg and his son Brian proposed a 76,000-square-foot office building for a parcel of land in South Portland, city planners balked at the idea, claiming the site was a swamp. Goldberg, however, quickly launched a counteroffensive, organizing a team of engineers and architects to prove that the twenty-acre parcel, though surrounded by a brook, was actually environmentally suitable for an office development. In the end, the team convinced city planners, and in 2003, Bramlie Corporation built the world headquarters for WEX, a credit-card processing firm. “He just kept pushing people to show them that their initial read on the property wasn’t correct,” says Brian, president of Bramlie. “I think his persistence got the project moving.” Goldberg’s ability to analyze the project’s economic potential and successfully advocate for its approval drew on two sets of skills he gained at Cornell through the joint M.B.A./ J.D. degree. The program allowed Goldberg to develop a

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diverse career that included working at one of northern New England’s largest law firms, at the accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), and finally at his own real estate company. “Cornell gave me much greater flexibility,” Goldberg says. “I was able to go from working in a specialized tax practice in a traditional law firm with over 100 lawyers to a major public accounting firm, and then I was able to go into business.” As an economics major at Colby College, Goldberg decided he wanted to attend law school, but at the same time, he realized he had a passion for business. He was accepted at Cornell Law School without knowing a joint M.B.A./J.D. program existed. But when his adviser at Colby called to tell him about the dual degree, Goldberg immediately applied. “It was very challenging, and it gave me more of an insight into the business world than I would have gotten at the time

in law school,” says Goldberg, who took courses in finance, marketing, and public utilities at what is now Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. “The whole spectrum of business courses exposed me to things that quite frankly I knew nothing about.”

Cornell gave me much greater flexibility. I was able to go from working in a specialized tax practice in a traditional law firm with over 100 lawyers to a major public accounting firm, and then I was able to go into business. — Jerome Goldberg ‘64

At the same time, the courses he took on taxation and contracts at the Law School helped him better understand what he was learning at the business school. “I think the degrees complemented each other,” he says. “It was all part of my four-year experience.” Ultimately, Goldberg decided to pursue an area of law that was business related, and

landed his first job at Coven and Suttenberg, a small firm in Boston that specialized in tax matters. Four years later, Goldberg and his wife, Susan, who had worked in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Cornell while in

After a brief stint at Cooper & Lybrand, where he ran the office’s tax practice, Goldberg decided to form a real estate company with his son, who had just graduated from college and wanted to renovate a commercial building on the

You learn by doing, but I know that the things I learned in law school and in business school helped me when I started practicing,” he says. “I think it all came together and made me better at what I did.

Goldberg continued to specialize in tax law, working initially at his own practice and then at the firm Bernstein Shur Sawyer & Nelson, where he was a partner for more than twenty years. Practicing law in Maine meant handling everything from individual and corporate tax matters to criminal tax cases. “You learn by doing, but I know that the things I learned in law school and in business school helped me when I started practicing,” he says. “I think it all came together and made me better at what I did.”

After establishing the foundation for his late client, Sam L. Cohen, an entrepreneur who lived in Biddeford, Maine, Goldberg served as the board chairman and helped run the day-to-day operations of the organization until an executive director was hired. Jeffrey Nathanson, president of the foundation’s board, says Goldberg was instrumental in starting the foundation, which

— Jerome Goldberg ‘64

Ithaca, moved back to their hometown of Portland, Maine.

tive in the real estate company and another major project he has been closely involved in— the Sam L. Cohen Foundation, a philanthropic organization that has awarded more than $20 million to nonprofit groups in southern Maine since it was formed in 2005.

outskirts of Portland. From that single project, the fatherand-son team developed a company that has built or rehabilitated dozens of office, retail, and commercial projects in Maine and New Hampshire. Having spent nearly his entire career in the Portland area, Goldberg was active in the Maine State Bar Association and was appointed by two Maine governors to serve on advisory committees on tax policy. He also helped create the Estate Planning and Tax Institute at Colby College, which was held every summer for more than twenty-five years.

is now one of the top ten philanthropies in Maine. “Jerry was really the leading force behind creating the vision, the strategy, and direction of the foundation,” Nathanson says. Goldberg’s contributions to the foundation have been valuable not only because of his legal and business skills but also because of his ability to work with people, Nathanson adds. “He’s a very gracious person,” Nathanson says. “He has a curious mind. He wants to figure out how to do the right thing and what the right thing is, and that influences a lot of what we do in a very positive way.” n ~SHERRIE NEGREA

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While he now winters in Boca Raton, Goldberg remains ac-

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BRIEFS

Cornell Law School Launches Death Penalty Center More than eighty faculty members, professors, and students gathered at Cornell Law School October 25 for the launch of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, the first center of its kind in the United States. In a discussion, panelists spoke about opportunities and challenges

The issue of terrorism has brought many states to revive the death penalty [which] thrives in situations of political tension and unrest. — Delphine Lourtau

the center faces on the path to the abolition of the death penalty. Delphine Lourtau, executive director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, said that terrorism has proved to be a challenge to the abolition of the death penalty: “The issue of terrorism has brought many states to revive the death penalty [which] thrives in situations of political tension and unrest.” Sandra Babcock, clinical professor of law, the center’s founder and faculty director, raised the question of whether the death penalty will be abolished in the United States in the near future. Denny LeBoeuf, director of the John Adams Project of the

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American Civil Liberties Union and a capital defense assistant for Guantánamo detainees, said efforts toward abolition are “succeeding on every front.” Sister Helen Prejean, best-selling author of Dead Man Walking, which has been adapted into film and an opera, spoke of her support for the project via a video conference call. In addition to research, advocacy, and litigation on death penalty issues, the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide’s major initiative is a summer institute that will bring capital defense lawyers from all over the globe together to share strategies on how to most effectively represent their clients.

Sister Helen Prejean appeared via video at the launch event, which featured panelists (L to R) Denny

LeBoeuf, Victor Uribe, Sandra Babcock, Delphine Lourtau, and Sheri Lynn Johnson.

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Funding for the center and its summer institute was made possible by a $3.25 million grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies, founded by Cornell alumnus Charles F. Feeney ’56. The gift will also enable the center to build partnerships with national and international organizations. Additionally, it will help to sustain the center’s free online database on laws and practices in countries and territories where capital punishment is still in place.

Whatever I’ve done in this world that’s worked, I owe to the Law School. I’ve enjoyed the thrill of analyzing things in both the for-profit world and the not-for-profit world, and I plan to continue saying thank you to the university and the Law School, doing whatever I can. — Allan R. Tessler

Given another hour or two, Peñalver could have listed some highlights of Tessler’s professional career too. But there was too much celebrating still to be done, and instead of talk about work, the evening was focused on family. “Allan created a legacy decades ago with a gift of $50 to the Law School Annual Fund,” said St. Eve. “He has continued that legacy and been a role model for all Cornell alumni. Allan and Frances have given back to Cornell Law School in so many different ways—their time, wise counsel, gifts to students and faculty, and sponsorship of programs on campus.”

“Capital punishment has emerged as one of the most important human rights issues in the twenty-first century,” said Eduardo Peñalver, the Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law, “and I am immensely pleased that The Atlantic Philanthropies has recognized Cornell Law School’s leading role, globally, in this debate.” The event was cosponsored by the Berger International Legal Studies Program. ~BARBARA ESUOSO C ornell C hronicle

Cornell Law School Celebrates Allan R. Tessler’s Birthday With the business of the Dean’s Advisory Council completed, two families joined together to

Council, and Allan and [his wife] Frances’s extraordinary personal support of Cornell was recognized by the university when they were named foremost benefactors. Every time I write a letter, I include my title, and I am honored to hold an office that bears Allan’s name.”

celebrate the eightieth birthday of Allan R. Tessler, A.B. ’58, LL.B. ’63, one of Cornell’s greatest benefactors. First, there were the Tesslers, with three generations, six Cornellians, and eighteen members in attendance. Next came his Cornell Law School family, led by Eduardo M. Peñalver, A.B. ’94, the Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law, and the Hon. Amy J. St. Eve,

A.B. ’87, J.D. ’90, chair of the Advisory Council. “To recite each volunteer office Allan has held would consume more time than I’ve been allotted,” said Dean Peñalver, opening the event in the new academic wing. “Allan was for many years a member of Cornell’s board of trustees, and he continues to serve Cornell as a presidential councillor. He’s one of just two life members of the Law School Advisory

Then, with gifts given and cake eaten, it was the guest of honor’s turn. “To say that I’m overwhelmed is an understatement,” said Tessler. “Whatever I’ve done in this world that’s worked, I owe to the Law School. I’ve enjoyed the thrill of analyzing things in both the for-profit world and the not-for-profit world, and I plan to continue saying thank you to the university and the Law School, doing whatever I can.”

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BRIEFS Two Victories for Asylum Clinic Seeking asylum in the United States can be a long, arduous process, and many asylum seekers lack legal resources to make their case. Earlier this year, two such individuals, having faced daunting setbacks, achieved a crucial second chance thanks to the work of Cornell’s Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic. Jamie Long ‘17 and Melvin Wu ‘17, supervised by clinic director Estelle McKee, represented a man from Somalia. When the respondent was thirteen years old, clan members had killed his family, kidnapped him, and repeatedly beat him. An immigration judge, though finding that the respondent was credible and had suffered past persecution, denied him asylum. The judge concluded that the respondent’s fear of future persecution was not well founded, as the “vast economic opportunities” of Mogadishu would allow him to relocate there, away from the circumstances of the previous attacks. In their brief, Long and Wu argued that the respondent could not relocate within Somalia to avoid persecution because of ongoing civil strife and attacks by al-Shabaab. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) remanded the case and ordered the immigration judge to consider the evidence the students had submitted on appeal. The respondent now

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has a trial attorney and is preparing for his new hearing. “The experience was rewarding, because our client deserved legal assistance, and it was the first time we were able to apply the expertise we developed in the classroom to a real-life situation,” say Long and Wu. “It was encouraging to see that

Meanwhile, Krsna Narayana Avila ‘17 and Yanet Yuritzy Cordero ‘17, supervised by Professor Sital Kalantry, represented a client from Benin. For four years after he converted to Christianity from the official state religion of Voudon, the respondent and his family were persecuted by his former Voudon congregation.

Krsna Avila

Yanet Cordero

Jamie Long

Melvin Yu

we were able to use our skills to have a positive impact in someone’s life. We worked hard to achieve a favorable result for our client, and we were thrilled to hear that the case was remanded!”

The immigration judge in Chicago who heard the respondent’s case denied his withholding and other claims, finding that the respondent did not experience past persecution and had not demon-

strated that he would, more likely than not, suffer future persecution. On appeal, Avila and Cordero argued that the presence of persecution should be determined from the perspective of a reasonable person in the asylum-seeker’s position. They used scholarly studies to demonstrate that Voudon curses can cause real, physical pain to people who believe in their power. In light of their arguments, the BIA remanded the case. Jessica Binzoni of the National Immigrant Justice Center represented the respondent at his new hearing and won withholding of removal for him. Avila, seconded by Cordero, reflects, “This case exemplifies why it is crucial for attorneys to represent those who are the most vulnerable in our society: indigent communities. Our client had lost his case in the lower court, not because he did not have a strong case, but because he lacked the financial resources to find representation and the skills needed to understand the complexity of our legal system and the law. Our team simply had the privilege to fill in those gaps.”

What’s Wrong with the First Amendment? Shiffrin’s New Book Celebrated at the Law School What’s wrong with the First Amendment? Quite a lot, according to a new book by Steven H. Shiffrin, the Charles Frank Reavis Sr. Professor of Law, Emeritus. On November 7, members of the Law School community gathered in Myron Taylor Hall to celebrate the publication of Shiffrin’s What’s Wrong with the First Amendment? (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Discussing the book were panelists Michael Dorf, the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell; Vincent Blasi, the Corliss Lamont Professor of Civil Liberties at Columbia Law School; and Shiffrin’s daughter Seana Shiffrin, a professor of philosophy and the Pete Kameron Professor of Law and Social Justice at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. The panel was moderated by Professor Aziz Rana of Cornell Law School. Speaking first, Dorf provided a summary of the book’s main points. Shiffrin, he said, accuses the U.S. Supreme Court of “free speech idolatry,” arguing that the Court habitually overprotects freedom of speech in circumstances where it conflicts with other important values. These values include privacy, security against cruelty and violence, equality, and democracy.

Steve thinks, at its core, what the First Amendment is about is protecting the right of dissenters and minorities to criticize the powerful. That’s why we need a First Amendment. We don’t need a First Amendment to protect powerful, moneyed interests. — Michael Dorf

Dorf noted that Shiffrin also examines ways in which the Court underprotects freedom of speech, particularly as that freedom is used by the disenfranchised. “Steve thinks, at its core, what the First Amendment is about is protecting the right of dissenters and minorities to criticize the powerful,” said Dorf. “That’s why we need a First Amendment. We don’t need a First Amendment to protect powerful, moneyed interests.” Blasi examined the book’s arguments through the lens of

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, characterized the decision as an “absolutely important precedent and dictum in terms of the good fight against First Amendment absolutism,” and in that way as harmonious with Shiffrin’s arguments in his book. Seana Shiffrin focused her comments on the theoretical “scaffolding” of the book, challenging her father on his complaint that the Court overly privileges free speech. The presentation concluded with comments from Shiffrin,

who explained his motivations with some strong criticism for the Roberts Court’s approach to the First Amendment: “Gruesomely violent video games sold to children being protected speech, depictions of animal cruelty, tobacco advertising when four hundred thousand people die every year because of smoking cigarettes, intentional infliction of emotional distress at funerals, the domination of election campaigns by the wealthy… when I thought about all that, I thought, I’m gonna write a book.”

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BRIEFS

“Dear Sirs”: Megan Castellano ‘11 Takes on Male-Centric Language in the Legal Field

LEFT:

Mario Roque

Rhodes Public Interest Fellow Mario Roque ‘17 Targets School Segregation Growing up in the Bay Area, Mario Roque ‘17, a Salvadoran immigrant who came to the United States as a child, experienced the effects of de facto school segregation firsthand. Next year, he’ll be working to change that reality: Cornell Law School has awarded Roque its sixth annual Frank H.T. Rhodes Public Interest Law Fellowship, funding a two-year project in conjunction with the Empire Justice Center aimed at desegregating schools

“Dear Sirs”: for a wide swath of legal, financial, and other professional services firms, it’s the “accepted standard” form of address in communications. That is no longer the case for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which this September became the first major British law firm to stipulate gender-inclusive alternatives such as “Dear Sir or Madam” in all communications and legal documents. The instigating force behind this move was Freshfields attorney Megan Castellano ‘11.

“’Dear Sirs’ represents a world we don’t live in, a world where women aren’t running companies, or countries, or making brilliant contributions to their communities,” says Castellano. “So I asked to speak with the managing partner at Freshfields about banning ‘Dear Sirs’ and moving to gender neutral/more inclusive language. Together, he and I strategized how to implement the new policy across the firm internationally.” This initiative was in character for Castellano, who has been determined to advance gender equality her whole life. “When I was little, my dream was to be the first female president. I

in the Rochester area. Roque plans to tackle the problem from multiple directions: community organizing with parents and local groups already working to reform Rochester’s education system; negotiating with school superintendents to build institutional support for systems exchanging city kids with those from the suburbs; and finally, if those efforts fail, filing suit to impose exchange pro-

’Dear Sirs’ represents a world we don’t live in, a world where women aren’t running companies, or countries, or making brilliant contributions to their communities.

grams or redraw school district boundaries. “It becomes a matter of either putting our heads together and

— Megan Castellano

reaching a collective agreement, or having somebody from the top down tell us what to do,” Roque says. “We want to do it with the least amount of pain possible.” Roque had already begun his work in Rochester this past summer, as an intern for Empire Justice. While there was never a question that he would continue with his public interest work after graduation, Roque says the Rhodes Public Interest Fellowship will allow him to proceed without the constant distractions fundraising would entail. The Frank H. T. Rhodes Public Interest Law Fellowship was established in 2010 with funding from The Atlantic Philanthropies, as well as support from Cornell Law School. The fellowship was named for Cornell University president Frank Rhodes, a former Atlantic board member and chair, who led the university between 1977 and 1995.

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Megan Costellano

believe this underlies my desire, also since I was little, to be a lawyer. I have always felt that being a lawyer gives you an ability, a platform, to effect change.” “At Cornell, my belief in the power of law only deepened. Cornell Law School fosters an atmosphere that encourages forward thinking, bravery, dedication, and self-belief. The Law School instills in you what it means to be a ‘lawyer in the best sense’: that you are more than yourself, that you have a responsibility to society and to further social progress.” After graduation, Castellano joined Freshfields in London, where she has now worked for five years as a capital markets attorney. In her professional life, Castellano often finds herself to be one of the few women, or the only one, in the room. She says that the practices and behaviors that contribute to a male-oriented workplace culture “can be confidence sapping and, therefore, career shaping for women. We must tackle them by confronting them head-on and by raising awareness and fostering understanding. Banning ‘Dear Sirs’ is a case in point.”

parts, including investment banks, accountancies, and other law firms, have opted to follow suit. “I will continue to look for ways to incrementally advance toward gender equality,” asserts Castellano. “I believe incremental changes can lead to seismic shifts.” Fast Forward Women’s Leadership Forum Hosted by Cornell Center for Women and Justice, iCivics, and Seneca Women On September 17, 2016, the Cornell Center for Women and Justice, along with Seneca Women and iCivics, brought together leaders from the public and private sectors as well as from government and nongovernmental organizations for the Fast Forward Women’s

Leadership Forum at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The event featured inspiring conversations about women, power, and purpose, and a call to action for the economic and social advancement of women and girls around the world. A highlight was Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. Supreme Court being interviewed by Adjunct Professor Kim Azzarelli ‘97, chair of the Cornell Center for Women and Justice. Other speakers included fashion designer and philanthropist Diane von Furstenberg, UN Women executive director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, CEO of Grameen America Andrea Jung, and Dr. Denis Mukwege, founder of Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Stewart Schwab, the Jonathan and Ruby Zhu Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and current faculty director of the Cornell Center for Women and Justice, spoke about the expanding scope of the center to encompass economic and technological empowerment, working closely with Cornell Tech. He then introduced iCivics, a program to use technology to improve civics education in the public schools. iCivics was founded by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, for whom Schwab was a law clerk, and is now being championed by Justice Sotomayor.

Within the short time since the initiative was implemented, Castellano has noted a ripple effect. She and Freshfields have received positive feedback and support from clients, counterparts, and peers. And a number of clients and counter-

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Fast Forward Women’s Leadership Forum

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BRIEFS Beth Lyon Receives Special Recognition from Friends of Farmworkers Beth Lyon, clinical professor of law and founder of the Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic, was recognized by Friends of Farmworkers for her service and contributions to the organization at its annual event, which was held October 25 in Philadelphia. Lyon has contributed significantly to Friends of Farmworkers through her extensive work on domestic and international immigrant and farm worker rights. As a national authority on the laws and policies affecting immigrant workers, Lyon has written extensively on domestic and international immigrant and farm worker rights, and generally about the human rights of the poor. She was on the board of Friends of Farmworkers for eight years, serving as governance committee chair and board vice president. “Friends of Farmworkers serves a vital function,” says Lyon.

“It’s a lifeline for farmworkers throughout Pennsylvania and a national innovator in defending the human rights of farmworkers. Being recognized by such a dedicated group of advocates is humbling and inspiring.” Friends of Farmworkers is a legal services organization that supports low-wage workers as they pursue economic and social justice. It does so through free representation, community education, and impact litigation.

Students Argue Definition of Insider

Sixth Amendment right to a fair and impartial jury.

Trading in 2016 Cuccia Cup Competition After weeks of intense preliminary rounds, the final round of this year’s Cuccia Cup Moot Court Competition was held on October 29 in the MacDonald Moot Court Room. The topic of debate involved a case of insider trading within the context of a close family relationship. The case touched on Dirks v. SEC, Tanner v. United States, racial bias, and the

Panel Discusses Past and Present of Populism Populism emerged as a result of disillusionment with the United States Constitution, said Cornell law professor Aziz Rana in a December 2 discussion titled “Populists, Progressives, and the Present” at Cornell Law School. Rana said populists began to interpret the Constitution as obstructing popular sovereignty and maintaining control of the United States by an elite upper class, and drew parallels between that feeling and today. “This growing disillusionment … for many of us in the room might be striking and surprising because … since the 1970s up until very recently, we’ve been living through a sustained period of what you could refer to as constitutional consensus, or agreement—the basic sense that the Constitution produces just outcomes, that it’s worthy of veneration,” Rana said. Elizabeth Sanders, a professor of government at Cornell, discussed populism and progressivism with regard to college campuses and in response to the recent election. Sanders said she believes “identity politics” do not contribute meaningfully to ABOVE LEFT:

Beth Lyon

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competition LEFT: Panel on Populism

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current discussions about how to restructure the American political system. Cornell Law School professor Robert Hockett said the United States was initially founded on an economic system in which the livelihood of no person was entirely dependent upon being employed by someone else. However, as the nation industrialized and the laborer class grew, questions arose about how to protect the rights of people whose ability to work rested on a single entity. The discussion, moderated by Professor Jed Stiglitz of Cornell Law School, was presented by the Berger Current Events Colloquium. ~TEAGAN TODD C ornell C hronicle

Roundtable of Cornell Experts Discusses the Ethiopian State of Emergency Following the 2015 elections in Ethiopia, there’s been an increase in prosecutions of opposition party leaders, arrests of journalists, and widespread use of security forces, with thousands of people displaced and tens of thousands of people detained. On October 9, after a year of protests over a master plan to remake Addis Ababa, the government declared a state of emergency, and on November 11, a group of Cornell faculty members gathered to discuss the crisis. “Far too often, Africa ends up being invisible,” said moderator

Following the 2015 elections in Ethiopia, there’s been an increase in prosecutions of opposition party leaders, arrests of journalists, and widespread use of security forces, with thousands of people displaced and tens of thousands of people detained.

Femi Cadmus

Femi Cadmus Named

Judith Byfield, professor of history, opening the panel discussion on the topic “Ethiopia: State of Emergency” in Myron Taylor Hall. “So it’s really important to engage in this conversation, not just because of what is happening within Ethiopia itself but because of the larger significance.” For the panel—Fouad Makki, associate professor of developmental sociology; Sara Marzagora, postdoctoral fellow at SOAS University of London; organizer Mostafa Minawi, assistant professor of history and director of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative; Muna Ndulo, professor of law; and Dagmawi Woubshet, associate professor of English— much of Ethiopia’s instability is built into its 1995 constitution, which created a federation of ethnic states. Led by one of the country’s smallest minority groups, the central government retains the majority of control, with weak regional governments competing internally and externally over land and wealth.

President-Elect of American Association of Law Libraries

Muna Ndulo

“This is a very highly combustible and complex situation, and of course, only Ethiopians can resolve the crisis,” said Ndulo, the Elizabeth and Arthur Reich Director of the Berger International Legal Studies Program and director of the Institute for African Development. “But they need the support of the international community to make sure there is sufficient pressure concerning how the government is treating its people. Ethiopia needs to work out constitutional arrangements that manage diversity and ensure inclusivity.”

Femi Cadmus, Edward Cornell Law Librarian, associate dean for library services, and professor of the practice, has been named president-elect of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). She will become president in July 2018 after serving a year as vice president of the organization. With nearly 4,500 members, the AALL is the principal professional organization for law librarians. “The economic pressures and technological innovations we face today provide unparalleled opportunities to reimagine law libraries and the role of the law librarian,” said Cadmus. “I look forward to working with the board and members in charting new paths.” “Femi’s elevation to this new position reflects her stature within the law library community and represents an important recognition by her

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BRIEFS colleagues at other schools of her many leadership talents,” said Dean Peñalver. “We are fortunate to be able to call her our own.”

Miguel Fraga

Secretary of the Cuban Embassy Visits the Law School “I’d like to say that we are in the best moment in the last fifty years between Cuba and the United States, and we don’t want to wait another fifty years,” Miguel Fraga told an audience at Myron Taylor Hall. “We believe that right now we can have normal relations.” Fraga is the first secretary of the Embassy of the Republic of Cuba in Washington, D.C. Assuming his post in July 2015, he became the first person to hold the position since the United States severed diplomatic ties with Cuba in 1961. On September 27, he was at the Law School to deliver “A Look to U.S.-Cuban Relations, Past, Present, and Desired Future,” presented by the Berger International Legal Studies Speaker Series. A main theme of Fraga’s presentation was correcting misconceptions about Cuba. He emphasized the country’s high international rankings in health care, literacy, sanitation, and other areas contributing to quality of life. He also cited Cuba’s major trade partners, its diplomatic relations with 191 countries, and the service and aid Cuban health-care workers provide around the world.

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Gerald Torres, the Jane M. G. Foster Professor of Law. Both spoke on the role of academia in transforming relations between Cuba and the United States. Afterward, Fraga, Ndulo, and Torres participated in a Q&A session with the audience. The discussion continued at a reception in the Student Commons. Austrian Minister of Justice Lectures on Hate Speech On August 26, Dr. Wolfgang Brandstetter, minister of justice of the Republic of Austria, visited Cornell Law School to deliver a presentation titled “Legal Challenges of Hate Speech and Hate Crime in Europe.”

I’d like to say that we are in the best moment in the last fifty years between Cuba and the United States, and we don’t want to wait another fifty years. — Miguel Fraga

Although the Obama administration reestablished diplomatic relations with Cuba last year, the United States currently maintains its 1962 economic embargo against the country. Fraga noted that the United Nations has condemned the embargo for twenty-four years and that last year President

Obama asked Congress to lift it. So who, Fraga wondered aloud, is supporting this embargo? And why? Fraga’s presentation was followed by brief commentary from Muna Ndulo, professor of law and the Elizabeth and Arthur Reich Director of the Berger International Legal Studies Program; and by

Brandstetter asserted that “the prosecution of hate speech aims to secure the possibility of equal participation of all people in public life,” while also acknowledging the tension between this mandate and the fundamental right to

freedom of expression. He noted that some of Austria’s strict prohibitions on hate speech would not meet the standards of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. He also addressed the challenges of Internet hate speech, sharing a string of recent cases in which defendants had received jail time for inflammatory comments on Facebook. He noted that Austria had also recently enacted a law that provides for criminal sanctions against “cyber-mobbing,” a development motivated by the suicide of a bullied student. “We will continue to impose legal restrictions on hate crime and hate speech and the misuse of freedom of speech that hurts people, violates the public interest, and too often leads to physical violence,” said Brandstetter. “That’s what we in Austria learned from history, and this lesson, which

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has been painful at times, will be our guideline for times to come.”

Lt. Gov. Hochul Urges

The talk was sponsored by the Berger International Legal Studies Program.

New York lieutenant governor Kathy Hochul discussed her career in public service and shared insights about combining a career with one’s passion September 1 in Cornell Law School’s Myron Taylor Hall.

We will continue to impose legal restrictions on hate crime and hate speech and the misuse of freedom of speech that hurts people, violates the public interest, and too often leads to physical violence.

Law Students to Pursue Public Service

Hochul urged students in the audience to capitalize on their opportunity to study at Cornell. Acknowledging the “cachet” of a Cornell degree, Hochul called on students to use their education to “support a cause and dedicate [themselves] to public service.”

Of her current office, Hochul said, “I am honored to be in this position because it allows me to go all over the state, connect with people in their own environment, get people jobs and opportunities… There are so many ways I can touch people; that is a gift, and I will always view public service as a privilege.”

— Dr. Wolfgang Brandstetter

Dr. Wolfgang Brandstetter RIGHT: Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul

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BRIEFS Law School Dean Emeritus Roger Cramton Dies Roger C. Cramton, former dean of Cornell Law School and the Robert S. Stevens Professor Emeritus of Law, died Feb. 3 in Ithaca. He was 87. Cramton began teaching law in 1957 as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School and then at the University of Michigan Law School, teaching ethics and torts. He became dean of the

Robert C. Cramton

As dean, Cramton was outspoken on the Watergate scandal gripping the country, believing Nixon should resign. “We’re in a situation of loss of leadership, paralysis of government, drift, that’s going to continue for three and a half years,” he told The Cornell Daily Sun in the summer of 1973.

In addition to his work as Cornell’s law dean, President Gerald Ford appointed Cramton as the first chairman of the Legal Services Corporation, the single largest funder of civil legal aid for low-income Americans in the nation.

Cornell Law School in 1973, following work with the Administrative Conference of the U.S. and the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon appointed Cramton as chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent federal agency dedicated to improve federal administrative procedures. In 1972, Nixon appointed him as assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, a role

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“much like that of chaplain to the pope,” according to the late Cornell law professor William Tucker Dean. Prior to Cramton’s appointment, the post was held by future Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and Cramton was succeeded by future Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. As Nixon’s Watergate scandal began to intensify in late 1972, Cramton was advising the president on ethics and constitutional presidential parameters. “Here [Cramton] infuriated President Nixon by concluding

that withholding appropriated funds was unlawful, and his tenure at the Department of Justice ended,” wrote Dean, in a retirement dedication to Cramton. Within days of Cramton’s departure from Justice, Cornell President Dale Corson called him. Cornell was conducting a Law School dean search. Following a campus visit and meetings with faculty and students, Corson offered him the job, and Cramton became dean in spring 1973.

“[Nixon] is a just a remnant; he has the trappings of power. The guards bow and scrape around the White House and the helicopters carry him around to one or another presidential haven. He’s unable to speak in public except to a hand-picked audience. He’s unable to hold a press conference. He’s a prisoner within the White House,” said Cramton. Nixon resigned in August 1974. In addition to his work as Cornell’s law dean, President Gerald Ford appointed Cramton as the first chairman of the

Legal Services Corporation, the single largest funder of civil legal aid for low-income Americans in the nation, a post he held from 1975 to 1978. He was succeeded as chair by Hillary Rodham Clinton. In addition to his numerous scholarly articles, Cramton also published with co-authors two leading teaching books in the field of law: The Law and Ethics of Lawyering (4th ed. 2005) and Conflict of Laws (5th ed. 1993). He also created The American Legal Ethics Library, a unique collection of state ethics codes accompanied by narratives on the law of lawyering of the respective states. Roger Conant Cramton was born May 18, 1929, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and was raised in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. He received his A.B. degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1950 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1955, where he served on the law review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He is survived by his widow, Harriet; his children, Ann Kopinski (Don), Charles ’78, J.D. ’83 (Debbie), Peter ’80 (Catherine), and Cutter (Dawn); two sisters; eleven grandchildren and twenty-one great-grandchildren. ~BLAINE FRIEDLANDER, C ornell C hronicle

U.S. Court of Appeals

On September 21, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit—Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann, Judge Peter W. Hall ‘77, and Judge Richard C. Wesley ‘74— brought a full docket to the MacDonald Moot Court Room at Cornell Law School. With

Statutes (Oxford 2014) was described as “required reading for all lawyers” by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. “In class, they learn about advocacy, they learn about writing briefs, they learn about the lawyering process. In the courtroom, they see all those pieces coming together in real cases with real lawyers and real judges. Today is a terrific example of what courts should be doing, and we hope

Judge Peter W. Hall ‘77

Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann

for the Second Circuit Hears Oral Arguments at Cornell Law

ten minutes for each side, attorneys argued a range of issues from due process and possession of child pornography to the limits of solitary confinement, the sixth amendment, and the Fair Labor and Standards Act. “The courts play an important educational role, and as students watch these proceedings, we hope they see oral arguments as a living example of what they’re learning in law school,” said Judge Katzmann, who has taught at NYU and UCLA, and whose Judging

students will ask themselves, ‘What makes a good brief? What makes a good oral argument?’” For people attending the hearings and the Q&A that followed, there were important lessons about how to argue a weak case, how to address the bench, and how to answer a question you don’t want to answer. (Honestly. Quickly.) To David Russell ’17, who hadn’t seen the Second Circuit in action, it was surprising to see how effectively a case could be argued in only ten

minutes; to Nicholas Jacques ’17, who’s going to judge an upcoming round of a student moot court competition, it was impressive to watch the bench taking such an active role in questioning each of the attorneys arguing before them. “It’s an opportunity to see what a hot bench looks like,” said Judge Hall. “As a panel, we invariably treat counsel for the petitioners with respect. We’re prepared to probe the issues

Judge Richard C. Wesley ‘74

within the timeframe allowed, but if we’re engaged in a conversation on a particular question, we continue to discuss it with counsel until we’re satisfied.” “Students are always interested in knowing how and why judges react, what does and doesn’t work,” said Judge Wesley, who co-teaches Cornell Law’s Federal Appellate Practice class with Professor John H. Blume, which culminates in oral arguments before the Second Circuit in New York City. “Because the reality

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BRIEFS is that the vast majority of lawyers never get to see behind the veil. That makes these hearings a really valuable experience, and for me, coming back to Cornell always feels like home. My law career has been nothing but joy for me, and it all started here.” Panel Discusses the Impact of Drones on War, Policing, and Privacy Cornell Law School welcomed four panelists on November 17 to discuss how drones may influence privacy law in the United States and how wars are conducted.

ment 520, based at Cornell, said that drones originated as a reconnaissance tool. Now, as they are used increasingly for warfare, the military is faced with the challenge of how to adapt their use for contested environments in which the enemy may return fire, he said. Cornell law professor Jens Ohlin said he wished to separate the general fear and anxiety surrounding drones from their actual potential legal impact. “In one sense a drone isn’t even a weapon, it’s a platform to put a weapon on,” Ohlin said.

law exists in the law of proportionality, which dictates that the number of civilian deaths must be proportional to (if not less than) the number of deaths of enemy soldiers. However, Ohlin said that while drones might not able to distinguish civilians from soldiers, their ability to survey an area before an attack could reduce the amount of collateral damage. Army Lt. Col. Mark Visger, an assistant professor at West Point, discussed how drone usage might conflict with different interpretations of presidential authority, particu-

by the police, regardless of whether the flyover involves drones. The audience was composed of about forty law students, who asked the panelists a variety of questions about the potential impact of drones. The discussion was supported by the American Constitution Society, the Federalist Society, the Veterans’ Association, and the National Security Law and Policy Society. ~TEAGAN TODD Co r ne ll Ch ro n i c l e

Moderated by Joe Margulies, professor of law and government, the panelists discussed current use of drones by military and police forces as well as future possibilities. Lt. Col. Juan Torres, commander of the Air Force ROTC Detach-

Joe Margulies

Jens Ohlin

“[That weapon] is usually a missile but it could be anything. It’s really more how you use the weapon rather than the weapon itself.”

larly when that drone usage might compromise the privacy of American citizens.

Ohlin said that there are few laws regulating weapons in warfare but a number of laws regulating how those weapons are used. The potential for drones to violate international

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Syracuse University professor Keli Perrin, assistant director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, said Americans currently have no Fourth Amendment protection when it comes to flyovers

Law Students Piece Together Message for Trump At the end of January, seventeen student groups from Cornell Law School sent a puzzle with the text of the Constitution to President Donald Trump in an effort to remind him that every piece of the Constitution is important.

Throughout the week, law students signed the backs of the puzzle pieces and wrote messages on them. They attached letters imploring President Trump to follow the Constitution during his presidency. One letter from the Asian Pacific American Law School Association detailed concerns regarding ethnic profiling and difficulties that many immigrants face. “[The puzzle] is a great metaphorical representation of what we are feeling, and the fact that students are signing individual pieces is a good way to show individual acknowledgement in a collective whole,” said Jenny Hu ‘18, president of APALSA.

It is essential, as future lawyers, to be engaged in such an important national discourse. Black Law Students Associations and Black Business Students Associations across the country are organizing movements and standing in solidarity to fight against racial injustice.

Rachael Hancock ‘18, president of the law school’s chapter of the American Constitution Society, thought the puzzle would be a good way to “get the community involved,” stressing that the main purpose of the puzzle is to show the importance of the Constitution as a whole.

— Shelbi Vaughn

~ L I N D S AY C AY N E C ornell Daily Sun

Law Students Hold Silent Protest in Response to Police Shootings Members of the Cornell Black Law Students Association and other students held a silent protest on September 29, 2016, at the Law School to express “condolences to the families TOP:

Law students hold silent protest BOTTOM: Puzzle for Trump

of Keith Lamont Scott and Terence Crutcher, the nation’s most recent victims of police shootings.” Participants in the protest attended classes, but remained silent from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., wore all black, and placed tape over their mouths bearing the victims’ names or phrases such as “Black Lives Matter.” In a statement to fellow students before the protest, the BLSA said that “we hope to remind our peers what #BlackLivesMatter stands for and to take action against bias and racial injustice.” “It is essential, as future lawyers, to be engaged in such an important national discourse,” said Shelbi Vaughn, president of the BLSA. “Black Law Students Associations and Black Business Students Associations across the country are organizing movements and standing in solidarity to fight against racial injustice. On Thursday, members of the Cornell Law community joined our business school counterparts at Johnson to raise awareness and to stand for something meaningful.” n

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John H. Blume, Samuel F. Leibowitz Professor of Trial Techniques; Director of Clinical, Advocacy and Skills Programs; Director, Cornell Death Penalty Project (with coauthor Sheri Johnson) “When Empathy Bites Back: Cautionary Tales from Neuroscience for Capital Sentencing,” Fordham Law Review vol. 85, no. 2 (2016) In this article, Blume and Johnson examine the implications of emerging neuroscientific findings regarding empathy for capital trials. They approach this task with caution because neuroscientists’ understanding of the human brain is still evolving. As with any new field, if neuroscience is completely trusted before it is thoroughly tested, there is a risk of embracing the new phrenology. Given the state of the research, their advice to defense lawyers is quite modest, but they believe that there are some important lessons for lawyers, judges, legislators, and other stakeholders in the capital punishment system.

Cynthia Grant Bowman, Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Law

despite sympathy with the approach, disagreed with it and went on to develop her own version of feminist equality theory. The author argues that the time is now ripe to recapture this strand of feminism and explore what it would add to the study and pursuit of women’s equality.

“Recovering Socialism for Feminist Legal Theory in the 21st Century,” Connecticut Law Review, vol. 49, no. 1 (2016). This article argues that a significant strand of feminist theory in the 1970s and 1980s— socialist feminism—has largely been ignored by feminist jurisprudence in the United States and explores potential contributions to legal theory of recapturing the insights of socialist feminism. It describes both the context out of which that theory grew, in the civil rights, anti-war, and anti-imperialist struggles of the 1960s, and the contents of the theory as developed in the writings of certain authors such as Heidi Hartmann, Zillah Eisenstein, and Iris Young, as well as their predecessors in the United Kingdom, and in the practice of socialist feminist groups in the United States during the same period. Although many American feminist legal theorists themselves participated in or were influenced by the progressive movements of the 1960s and 1970s, socialist feminism is virtually absent from their writings, except for those of Catharine MacKinnon, who,

Femi Cadmus, Edward Cornell Law Librarian, Associate Dean for Library Services, and Professor of the Practice “The Quintessential Law Library and Librarian in a Digital Era,” Green Bag vol. 20, no. 1 (2016) Libraries, like most institutions and industries today, are faced with disruptive technologies that challenge their relevancy in a digital era. As a result, erstwhile notions and nostalgia associated with the quintessential library and librarian are changing rapidly. This is a compelling era to reimagine the library, retaining essential traditions alongside the new technologies, which facilitate the preservation, discoverability, accessibility, and delivery of information. It is also an opportunity for libraries to respond creatively

and innovatively to change. The quintessential law library and librarian cannot only survive but can also thrive in the digital era by continuing to demonstrate value through the development of new services that satisfy user needs in a digital era. This will hopefully engender a new law librarian and new quintessence in the law library.

Zachary D. Clopton, Assistant Professor of Law “Judging Foreign States,” Washington University Law Review, vol. 94, no. 1 (2016) Famed foreign relations law principles, including the act of state doctrine, the public law taboo, and Zschernig’s foreign affairs preemption, rely on the notion that U.S. courts should not sit in judgment on foreign states. Judges in these cases, as well as scholars writing in the area, frequently suggest that U.S. courts should sit out of important disputes due to considerations of sovereign equality and international comity. Yet, in less attention-grabbing cases, U.S. courts routinely sit in judgment on foreign judgments, laws, legal systems, and interests, sometimes concluding that they do meet U.S.

standards. The first goal of this project, therefore, is to identify and catalog those circumstances in which U.S. courts sit in judgment on foreign states. This extensive catalog should cast doubt on unsystematic objections to sitting in judgment: Were we to accept that sitting in judgment was per se impermissible, all sorts of current doctrines would need to be revisited. Such a categorical rule is not only radical, but also unjustified. The doctrines in which courts sit in judgment are routine and unremarkable;

terests or international comity. But this literature, in Clopton’s view, risks focusing too much on the transnational aspects of these cases to the exclusion of domestic institutional concerns. As a potential corrective, Clopton imagines sitting-injudgment doctrine that is responsive to those structural factors that govern institutional arrangements within the U.S. system. Applying the tools of comparative institutional analysis, cases could be divided into those bilateral, legal, and constrained adjudi-

Famed foreign relations law principles, including the act of state doctrine, the public law taboo, and Zschernig’s foreign affairs preemption, rely on the notion that U.S. courts should not sit in judgment on foreign states.

they protect important institutional and individual concerns; and they have not sparked international incident. Nor is there a coherent distinction between the doctrines that call for courts to sit in judgment and those that do not. Identifying these issues does not determine a better approach, and recent scholarship on these and related cases have proposed changes to U.S. law that turn on external considerations such as foreign in-

cations for which the commonlaw courts were designed, versus those polycentric, systemic, political inquiries best left to the political branches. Federalism, with implications for both authority and capacity, would suggest further division of responsibilities among relevant institutions. And individualrights considerations would offer guidance to courts about how to sit in judgment when called upon to do so. This

analysis demonstrates not only that there is no per se reason that U.S. institutions should avoid sitting in judgment on foreign state acts, but also that current law may not be allocating responsibility for sitting in judgment consistent with domestic institutional considerations.

Michael C. Dorf, Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law (with coauthor Neil H. Buchanan) “Don’t End or Audit the Fed: Central Bank Independence in an Age of Austerity,” Cornell Law Review, vol. 102, no. 1 (2016) The Federal Reserve (the Fed) is the central bank of the United States. Because of its power and importance in guiding the economy, the Fed’s independence from direct political influence has made it a target of ideologically motivated attacks throughout its history, with an especially aggressive round of attacks coming in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and ongoing today. In this article, Dorf and Buchanan defend Fed independence. They point to the Fed’s exemplary performance during and after the 2008 crisis, and offer the example of a potential future crisis in which Congress falls

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Does the Second Amendment apply to civil suits for trespass, negligence, and nuisance? Does the Amendment cover gun-neutral laws of general applicability like assault and disturbing the peace?

to increase the debt ceiling to show how the Fed’s independence makes it the only entity that can minimize the damage during crises (both market driven and policy induced). Dorf and Buchanan further argue that the Fed’s independence is justified to prevent self-dealing by politicians, even when no crisis is imminent. Although the classic justification for Fed independence focuses on the risk that political actors will keep interest rates lower than appropriate for the long-term health of the economy, they show that Fed independence addresses the risk of self-dealing and other pathologies even when, as now, political actors favor tighter monetary policy than appropriate for the long-term health of the economy.

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“Incidental Burdens and the Nature of Judicial Review,” University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 83, no. 3 (2016) Professors Joseph Blocher and Darrell Miller deserve enormous credit for identifying a heretofore largely unrecognized problem. They explain that common-law doctrines and general statutes that are not instances of conventional gun control can nonetheless be applied in ways that limit the freedom to own, possess, and use firearms. They ask: “Does the Second Amendment apply to civil suits for trespass, negligence, and nuisance? Does the Amendment cover gun-neutral laws of general applicability like assault and disturbing the peace?” More broadly, should the application of such doctrines and laws trigger Second Amendment scrutiny? Blocher and Miller offer a framework for thinking about an important set of unresolved questions. This essay has three goals of its own. Part I is a compliment disguised as a quibble. In responding to Blocher and Miller’s characterization of his analysis of incidental burdens, Dorf notes that their article is an important contribution to the literature on the Second Amendment as a whole, not just incidental burdens thereon. Part II notes an important distinction between other rights that might be incidentally burdened by general laws—especially speech, religion, and equal protection—

and the Second Amendment right to own, possess, and use firearms. Each of the former has a strong equality component. That difference might lead one to conclude that direct burdens on these other rights ought to trigger greater scrutiny than direct burdens on Second Amendment rights. Part III explains how Blocher and Miller have identified what ought to be, but is not yet, a central concern of jurisprudence: when and how to pick out a particular legal obligation from the entire legal corpus and call that particular obligation a distinct law.

Robert C. Hockett, Edward Cornell Professor of Law “Putting Distribution First,” Theoretical Inquiries in Law, vol. 18, no. 1 (2017) It is common for normative legal theorists, economists and other policy analysts to conduct and communicate their work mainly in maximizing terms. They take the maximization of welfare, for example, or of wealth or utility, to be primary objectives of legislation and public policy. Few if any of these theorists seem to notice, however, that any time we speak explicitly of maximizing one thing, we speak

implicitly of distributing other things and of equalizing yet other things. Fewer still seem to recognize that we effectively define ourselves by reference to that which we distribute and equalize. For it is in virtue of that which we distribute and equalize that our policy formulations treat us as politically “counting” or “mattering” for purposes of social aggregation and maximization. To attend systematically to this form of inter-translatability, with a view in particular to that which maximization formulations latently prescribe that we distribute and equalize, might be called “putting distribution first.” It is explicitly to recognize the fact that all law and policy are implicitly as equalizing and citizen-defining as they are aggregative and maximizing, and to trace the many salient consequences that stem from this fact. It is likewise to recognize that all law and policy treat us as equals in some respects and as non-equals in other respects. Putting distribution first by attending explicitly to these “respects” yields greater transparency about how well or poorly our laws and policies manage to identify, count, and treat us as equals in the right respects. This article works to lay out with care how to put distribution first in normative legal and policy analysis. The payoffs include both a workable method by which to test proposed maximization norms systemat-

ically for their normative propriety, and an attractive distributive ethic that can serve as a workable normative touchstone for legal and policy analysis. Indeed, the article concludes, much—though not yet quite all—of our law can illuminatingly be interpreted as giving inchoate expression to just such an ethic.

Oskar Liivak, Professor of Law “Private Law and the Future of Patents,” Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, vol. 33, (2017) As it operates today, patent law does not qualify as private law and, without change, Liivak doubts it ever will. For some, this is as it should be and any private law aspects that remain in the patent system should be purged. The basic argument is that the dominant theory of patents is just not compatible with private law and patent doctrine should reflect a pure public law theoretical basis. Liivak agrees that today’s dominant patent theory is incompatible with private law principles. Yet agreeing with that inherent incompatibility does not imply that doctrine needs to be reformed. There is an alternative. Patent theory can be adjusted instead. This article points to an

emerging innovation-focused basis for patent law that is explicitly private law. Not only does that lead to consistency, the change also offers a desperately needed promise of private law. Private law institutions offer the potential for extremely low administration costs. Private law institutions function smoothly without the need of chronic, expensive judicial intervention. Today the litigation related costs of the patent system threaten to capsize the whole patent system. Private law offers a promising, needed alternative.

Jens David Ohlin, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law “The Common Law of War,” William & Mary Law Review, vol. 58, no. 2 (2016) In recent litigation before U.S. federal courts, the government has argued that military commissions have jurisdiction to prosecute offenses against the

“common law of war,” which the government defines as a body of domestic offenses, such as inchoate conspiracy, that violate the American law of war. This article challenges that definition by arguing that stray references to the term “common law of war” in historical materials meant something completely different. By examining the Lieber Code, the writings of early natural law theorists, and early American judicial decisions, this article concludes that the “common law of war” referred to a branch of the law of nations that applied during internal armed conflicts, such as civil wars with non-state actors. This body of law was called “common,” not because it was extended or elaborated by the common law method of judgeapplied law, but rather because it was “common” to all mankind by virtue of natural law, and thus even applied to internal actors, such as rebel forces, who were not otherwise bound by international law as formal states were. By recapturing this lost definition of the common law of war, this article casts some doubt on the U.S. government’s position that military commissions have jurisdiction

In recent litigation before U.S. federal courts, the government has argued that military commissions have jurisdiction to prosecute offenses against the “common law of war.”

not only over international offenses, but also domestic violations of the law of war.

Saule Omarova, Professor of Law “Bank Governance and Systemic Stability: The ‘Golden Share’ Approach,” Alabama Law Review, vol. 68, no. 4 (2017) The global financial crisis of 2008-2009 has sharply reframed the debate on the role of bank corporate governance as a mechanism of systemic crisis prevention. Among other things, it revealed how often the incentives of bank managers and shareholders to maximize short-term private gains are perfectly aligned as a matter of internal governance, but work directly against the broader public interest in preserving long-term financial stability. This article accepts the existence of that built-in potential conflict as the critical starting point for answering the central question of postcrisis bank governance: How do we ensure that the board of directors of a privately owned banking institution consistently and effectively acts in a manner that serves the overarching public interest in preventing systemic financial crises?

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How do we ensure that the board of directors of a privately owned banking institution consistently and effectively acts in a manner that serves the overarching public interest in preventing systemic financial crises?

The article offers an unorthodox solution to this problem: in lieu of “improving” or “tweaking” existing standards and procedures that determine board composition or guide specific board actions, it advocates a fundamental structural reconfiguration of bank governance. Specifically, the article proposes a special “golden share” regime that would grant direct but conditional management rights to a designated government representative on the board of each systemically important banking organization. The goal of the proposed regime is to create a powerful organizational node of public-interest-driven management, which would operate as a dynamic and flexible internal “emergency brake” on individual banks’ activities presenting significant systemic stability concerns. In effect, this mechanism would enable the federal government to

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accept the role of the “manager of last resort” of a systemically significant financial firm—but only temporarily, and only when it is necessary to preempt or reverse emerging threats to the financial system’s continuing operation. Importantly, the proposed regime is neither a nationalization measure nor an institutionalized bank bailout. Its overarching purpose is not to put the government in charge of private firms but, on the contrary, to steer the firms toward self-correcting and preventative actions necessary to avoid that undesirable result. In that sense, the golden share regime operationalizes a novel approach to bank—and, more broadly, systemically important financial institution— corporate governance as an inherently hybrid public– private process.

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Henry Allen Mark Professor of Law “Are Arbitrators Human?” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, vol. 13, no. 4 (2016) Empirical research has confirmed the correctness of the legal realists’ assertion that “judges are human.” It demonstrates that judicial decisions are sometimes tainted by bias, ideology, or error. Presumably, arbitrators are “human” in that sense too, but that conclusion does not necessarily follow. Although arbitrators and judges both umpire disputes, they differ in a variety of ways. Therefore, it is possible that arbitrators’ awards are either better or worse than judges’ decisions. This article reports the results of research conducted on elite arbitrators specializing in resolving commercial disputes. Our goal was to determine whether, like judges, arbitrators are subject to three common cognitive illusions—specifically, the conjunction fallacy, the framing effect, and the confirmation bias. We also wanted to find out whether, like judges, arbitrators exhibit a tendency to rely excessively on intuition that may exacerbate the impact of cognitive illusions on their decision making. Our results reveal that “arbitrators are human,” and indicate that arbitrators perform about the

same as judges in experiments designed to detect the presence of common cognitive errors and excessive reliance on intuition. This suggests that arbitrators lack an inherent advantage over judges when it comes to making high quality decisions. Whether the situation in which arbitrators make their awards is more conducive to sound decision making than the setting in which judges make their rulings, however, remains unclear.

Annelise Riles, Jack G. Clarke Professor of Far East Legal Studies and Professor of Anthropology “Space, Time, and Historical Injustice: A Feminist Conflictof-Laws Approach to the ‘Comfort Women’ Settlement,” Cornell Law Review, vol. 102, no. 3 (2017) After more than twenty years of worldwide feminist activism, transnational litigation, and diplomatic stalemate, on December 28, 2015, Japan and South Korea announced a historic agreement intended to provide closure to the so-called “Comfort Women issue”—the issue of what Japan must do to atone for the

sexual enslavement of up to 200,000 women from throughout Asia in service to the Japanese troops before and during World War II. Reactions to this landmark agreement have been mixed, and the question for many is whether it will hold. One challenge is how to respect the scale and systematicity of the crimes without imposing a single narrative, or without projecting an overdetermined understanding of the gendered past onto the future. We offer an analysis of this question in a wider lens: how to address grave historical injustices when legal claims and advocacy goals spread and metamorphose not only over time, but also across jurisdictions. Focusing on one high-profile and particularly contentious provision of the settlement, concerning the status of a privately erected statue honoring the Comfort Women outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul, we first show that the usual questions about settlements— whether they can or cannot achieve closure—can productively be traded for attention to where and when closure and reopening occurs. Borrowing our analytical lens from the field of conflict of laws, we then refine the problem as a manifestation of a pervasive issue for feminist justice in a globalized world that we call “spatio-temporal diffusion.” We argue that a novel response to this diffusion of historical

injustices can be grounded in conflict-of-laws techniques. Using the hypothetical of a case brought by Korean Comfort Women in California, we re-describe the field’s techniques for dealing with time across space as a matter of what we term the “sequencing” of different spatio-temporal horizons. This approach resonates with, but also goes a step beyond the arguments of certain feminist social theorists that feminist politics must be polytemporal. In the mode of an interdisciplinary experiment, we deploy the conflicts technique of sequencing spatio-temporal horizons as a more specified and hopeful approach to a feminist future.

Jed Stiglitz, Assistant Professor of Law, Jia Jonathan Zhu and Ruyin Ruby Ye Sesquicentennial Fellow “Forces of Federalism, Safety Nets, and Waivers,” Theoretical Inquiries in Law, vol. 18, no. 1 (2017) Inequality is the defining feature of our times. Many argue it calls for a policy response, yet the most obvious policy

responses require legislative action. And if inequality is the defining feature of our times, partisan acrimony and gridlock are the defining features of the legislature. So being, it is worth considering what role administrative agencies, and administrative law, might play in ameliorating or exacerbating economic inequality. In this article, Stiglitz focuses on American safety-net programs, many of which are joint operations between federal administrative agencies and state governments. In this context, a central mode of bureaucratic

ers of both parties have tended to favor waivers. The appeal of waivers as a path around legislative gridlock is compelling. However, Stiglitz argues that this view has neglected the federal structure of American safety-net programs, and does not account for the state politics of implementation. Moreover, scholars have not focused on the severe information problems that federal agencies face when issuing waivers; a permissive waiver regime exacerbates these problems. Focusing on Medicaid implementation, Stiglitz highlights

Inequality is the defining feature of our times. Many argue it calls for a policy response, yet the most obvious policy responses require legislative action. And if inequality is the defining feature of our times, partisan acrimony and gridlock are the defining features of the legislature.

policy innovation comes in the form of administrative waivers, whereby a federal administrative agency waives some statutory requirement that otherwise binds on state administrators. For example, the CMS recently granted waivers to allow several states to impose various “personal responsibility” requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries. Faced with a choice between legislative inactivity and policy innovation through waivers, many scholars and policymak-

the risks of waivers for American safety-net programs. Before concluding, he discusses possible reforms to administrative procedures, and offers a case study of litigation surrounding one recent waiver application. The case study illustrates many of the theoretical arguments, and further demonstrates the failure of judicial review; it indicates how review might be adjusted to promote more effective use of waivers and diminish their perils.

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Law School Annual Fund Thrives The Law School Annual Fund was achieving excellent results at the midterm point of fiscal 2017. New cash gifts and commitments at the close of business on December 31, 2016, booked at $1.7M, an increase of 13 percent over the same period of the 2016 fiscal year. Although donor participation was 5 percent lower, expectations for strong Reunion-year giving lent optimism that the ABOVE:

The Law Firm Challenge realized a total of nearly $500,000 in new gifts and commitments to all giving areas at Cornell Law School by the end of the 2016 calendar year.

Unveiling of Elizabeth Storey Landis portrait

cent, while alumni at Latham & Watkins had given the most in dollars. With Reunion coming up fast, the game remains on for the Law Firm Challenge. Naming Gifts Build Cornell Law School

annual fund would reach its $2.7M goal. A portion of that overall total comes via the Law Firm Challenge, which again showed strong returns during the first half of fiscal 2017. A friendly competition among Cornell Law School alumni at the participating firms, the Law Firm Challenge realized a total of nearly $500,000 in new gifts and commitments to all giving areas at Cornell Law School by the end of the 2016 calendar year. Cornell Law School alumni at DLA Piper led the way in participation at 47 per-

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Two gifts during the first half of fiscal 2017 named new spaces at Cornell Law School. A bequest from the estate of Elizabeth Storey Landis ’48 named the main auditorium in the Wing for Academic Instruction, built in 2013–2014. Elizabeth Storey Landis was known for her work on Liberian law codification and for her legal activism for the independence of countries in Africa. Liberia awarded her the Humane Order of African Redemption for the former project, which concluded in 1980. She was a professor of African studies at the American College in Paris, where her husband, William Landis ’49,

was assigned to the Paris office of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander. Landis published articles on law, human rights, and southern Africa in the Yale Law Journal and the Cornell Law Quarterly. She became one of the first board members of the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), served as vice president of ACOA during the 1970s, and published many articles in ACOA’s journal, Africa Today. She worked with the leaders of the South West Africa People’s Organization, including Sam Nujoma (eventually Nambia’s first president), for the liberation of Namibia and served as senior political affairs officer for the United Nations Council for Namibia from 1976 to 1981. A gift by C. Evan Stewart ’77 to facilities helped underwrite the reconstruction of Hughes Hall and named the new Seminar Room in Hughes in honor of his father, Charles Thorp

Stewart, A.B. ’40. C. Evan Stewart is a longtime member of the Law School Dean’s Advisory Council and cofounded the Dean’s Special Leadership Committee. He has also served as University Trustee and as chair of the Cornell University Council, and is a benefactor of many schools and units at Cornell, in addition to the Law School. Stewart is a senior partner at Cohen & Gresser in the firm’s New York City office, where he focuses his practice on the financial services industry. Allan G. Mutchnik ’88 Establishes Scholarship Endowment In support of Dean Peñalver’s priority of increasing J.D. tuition grants, Allan Mutchnik ’88 and his wife, Nicole, have established an endowment fund to provide an annual Law School scholarship. The Mutchnik Scholarship will be awarded each year on the basis of academic merit to a J.D. candidate, at the discretion of Cornell Law School’s Allan R. Tessler Dean. Allan Mutchnik is the chief administrative officer of Harbor Freight Tools, a valuepriced tool retailer with 750 stores in forty-seven states, with a new store opening about every three days. Mutchnik joined Harbor Freight in 2012 to help lead the company and help manage the interests and philanthropy of the owner. Previously, he was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher

& Flom, where he practiced real estate law for twenty-four years. Nicole Mutchnik is a graduate of UCLA and holds an M.P.A. from the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania. Lorene J. Bow ’52 Bequest Endows Law School Scholarship A bequest from the estate of Lorene Joergensen Bow ’52 has endowed a new scholarship at Cornell Law School. The Joergensen-Bow Law Scholarship is named in memory of Bow’s parents, Dr. Hans

Cornell Law School scholarship funds. In recognizing this gift in support of Law scholarships, Dean Peñalver said, “I am personally grateful that Lorene Bow remembered the Law School in this remarkable way. Ms. Bow’s generosity will make a Cornell legal education more affordable to an outstanding student who otherwise would have incurred substantial educational debt to attain the J.D. As I perceive it, the Bow bequest is an endorsement of our ongoing efforts to increase scholarship resources and to

of Arts and Sciences and received her A.B. in 1950. She was awarded a J.D. by Cornell Law School in 1952. Legal Information Institute Acquires SCOTUS Audio, New Gifts This year, with the help of friends at Justia.org, Oyez.org found a new home at the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School. The LII also had its best calendar yearend fundraising campaign yet, and this spring it will embark upon a substantial corporate sponsorship campaign as it

I am personally grateful that Lorene Bow remembered the Law School in this remarkable way. Ms. Bow’s generosity will make a Cornell legal education more affordable to an outstanding student who otherwise would have incurred substantial educational debt to attain the J.D. — Eduardo M. Peñalver

Joergensen and Viola M. Joergensen, and her husband, Robert Bow. It will be awarded to a J.D. candidate of academic merit, at the discretion of the Allan R. Tessler Dean of Cornell Law School. At its establishment, the JoergensenBow endowment stands among the largest named

make a Cornell Law School education more accessible.”

celebrates twenty-five years of improving access to law.

Lorene Bow was born in Greenport, New York, and for many years was a resident of various places in Scotland, including Glasgow and Lanarkshire. In later years, she resided in East Windsor, New Jersey. Bow attended Cornell’s College

After months of uncertainty about its future, the Oyez Project, a free repository of more than 10,000 hours of U.S. Supreme Court oral-argument audio and other court resources, has been received as a gift to the LII. According to the donor, Oyez founder and Chicago-

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ALUMNI Kent College of Law professor Jerry Goldman, “The LII was a logical destination because their missions of public access to the law aligned perfectly, and a new affiliation with Cornell will provide both stability and notoriety for Oyez.”

over all associated operational and administrative work and will remain a partner and coowner of Oyez until its full value—a seven-figure estimate—and operations can transition smoothly to Cornell over a fixed period of time.

Launched in 1993, Oyez.org boasts nearly nine million visits annually, ranging from students researching term papers to Supreme Court practitioners rehearsing upcoming

For a second straight year, the LII enjoyed robust results from its year-end fundraising campaign, with increases in both giving and participation. After applying a new website solici-

The LII was a logical destination because their missions of public access to the law aligned perfectly, and a new affiliation with Cornell will provide both stability and notoriety for Oyez. — Jerry Goldman

arguments. The Supreme Court has taped oral arguments for the last sixty years and deposited them with the National Archives. Oyez makes the audio available on its website with additional information, including searchable transcripts that are synchronized with the audio. Justia, the LII’s largest supporter, and its CEO, Tim Stanley, played a pivotal role in the gift of Oyez ownership and operations. To preserve continuity during a complicated transition, Justia’s team in Mountain View, California, has taken

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tation strategy in 2015, the LII focused on encouraging past donors to give again by making it easier for them to use its online giving platform. The campaign also brought in over 2,000 first-time donors and increased the average gift size by $5. In 2017, as the LII marks twenty-five years of helping people find and understand the law, it will roll out a corporate sponsorship campaign to assist with new leadership levels of sustainable support and to improve readers’ website experience through the eventual elimination of advertising. In-

creased philanthropic support from corporate sponsors will also allow the LII to form strategic relationships with businesses from all industries with an interest in improving access to law. The LII welcomes any inquiries from alumni and friends about sponsorship opportunities or other ways to get involved. Please contact Peter Kopp at pkopp@cornell. edu or (607) 255-9634 for more information. Diener Shares Stories About Entrepreneurship and Social Responsibility at Curia Dinner Following graduation, Robert B. Diener ’82, launched his career practicing corporate and securities law in Los Angeles. After two years had passed, he was ready for something new, and decided to go into business with his classmate David S. Litman ’82. They made a handshake deal that’s lasted a lifetime, taking them from one successful venture to another, and bringing Diener to the 86th Annual Curia Society Dinner, where he shared his philosophy of conservative entrepreneurship. “The Curia Dinner always aims to bring speakers who are breaking new ground in the law, and Bob is the perfect choice to carry that tradition forward,” said Eduardo Peñalver, the Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law, who opened the event at New York City’s Harmonie Club on

November 17. “Throughout his career, Bob has used the analytical skills he acquired at Cornell Law to build innovative and successful businesses. His tremendous success is a source of great pride for the Law School, and his intelligence, hard work, and creativity embody the traits we try to instill in our students.” Diener and Litman started small, buying and selling real estate. Then, with a modest investment, they built one of the most profitable airfare wholesalers in the country. Next, they founded Hotel Reservations Network, which evolved into Hotels.com, and followed with their current Getaroom.com, where Litman serves as CEO and Diener as president and in-house counsel. It’s been a very, very successful run, which Diener and Litman credit to three things: a merchant model for sales that’s become the industry standard, a business philosophy based on controlling risk, and an attention to detail that comes from their experience in law school. “Cornell Law helped me succeed in business,” said Diener, who gives special thanks to professors Alan Gunn, Faust Rossi, and Irving Younger, whose lessons he uses every day. “A big part of being successful in business is due diligence, which is something we learned in law school. Going to a business executive position is really a natural thing to do, because the skills you learn in

turned his vision into a tour de force in the hotel industry.”

Cornell Law helped me succeed in business. A big part of being successful in business is due diligence, which is something we learned in law school.

“It felt great to be surrounded by people who’d studied at the Law School or the Hotel School and dedicated their lives to creating change,” said Laura M. Miranda ’89, who delivered the opening remarks. “As a Latina, I was very proud to welcome Eduardo Peñalver, the first Latino dean of an Ivy League law school. It was inspiring and heartfelt, to interact with younger and older alumni, and fulfilling to know—I’m one of them, I’m part of this club.”

— Robert B. Diener ‘82

Wiswall ’65 Receives Maritime Prize

Curia Dinner

law school are incredibly beneficial, especially as a CEO or president of a company, where you really have to understand risk. That means knowing how to do your homework. Being thorough. Thinking things through. Making your point clearly. In the business world, your goal is to focus on keeping risk to a minimum without impeding the potential upside of reward. Understanding how to assess that risk, which is the basis of what I call conservative entrepreneurship, was

Frank Lawrence Wiswall Jr.

part of the training I received in law school.” Along with that due diligence in business and beyond, Diener and Litman have always emphasized the importance of social responsibility and philanthropy, a message that resonated with Curia, which was founded by Jewish attorneys barred from membership at other legal societies. “The primary mission of Curia is to gather Law School alumni once a year for a gala dinner to support the Law School, and secondarily to perpetuate

the memory of its genesis in the roots of discrimination against Jewish law students,” said Honorable Stephen G. Crane ’63, who cochairs the planning committee with Jonathan L. Hochman ’88. “It’s fitting we meet at the Harmonie Club, directly across the street from a club that originally excluded Jews, which we tend to forget. We meet, we mingle, we network a little over after-dinner cordials and desserts. And Bob was a wonderful speaker, so it was inspiring to hear the way he

Frank Lawrence Wiswall Jr. ’65 was awarded the International Maritime Organization’s International Maritime Prize, which is given annually to the individual or organization that has made the most significant contribution to the work and objectives of the IMO. Dr. Wiswall has served as chair of the Drafting Committee of the International Legal Conference on the Carriage of Passengers and their Luggage on Board Ships (1974); vice-chair of the Legal Committee (1974-1979); chair of the Committee on Final Clauses of the International Conference on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims (1976); chair of the Legal Committee (1980-1984); chair of the Committee of the Whole of the International Conference on Liability and Com-

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ALUMNI pensation for Damage in Connexion with the Carriage of Certain Substances by Sea (1984); and a member of the International Maritime Law Institute Governing Board (1992–present). “Dr. Wiswall’s contribution to IMO’s goals has been vast,” said IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim. “In helping to provide the legal backbone for a regulatory regime that covers just about every aspect of ship design, construction and operation, and related issues like liability and compensation, wreck removal and ship recycling, he has played his part in our common goal of making shipping safe, secure, efficient, and clean.” Eight Law School Alumni Join the Supreme Court Bar Monday morning started early for the eight Cornell Law School alumni being admitted to the United States Supreme Court bar. Gathering on the courthouse steps at 7:55 am on November 7, they were escorted to breakfast in the Natalie Cornell Rehnquist Dining Room, met by the Clerk of the Supreme Court, ushered through the security checkpoint, seated in the front of the courtroom, and formally sworn into the highest court in the land. “It was very exciting, very surreal to become part of this hallowed club,” says Sam Tarver ’90, associate general counsel/ethics officer at the

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Cornell Law alumni recently admitted to the Supreme Court Bar

Federal Bureau of Prisons and a member of the Law School’s Alumni Executive Board. “I think I was downplaying it beforehand, but once I’d been directed to all these places the general public isn’t allowed to go, and I was standing in the middle of all this pageantry and pomp, it was very, very intense.” On a day when the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments in National Labor Relations Board v. SW General, which focuses on procedural issues in the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, the first order of business was admitting Tarver and his fellow alumni: Melissa Colón-Bosolet ’07; Sandrine Cousquer-

Okasmaa ’00; Natalya Johnson ’10; Viktor Okasmaa, LL.M. ’03; Mark Schonfeld ’77; David Shimkin ’97; and Thomas Skilton ’93. Motioning the group forward was Jason Beekman ‘11. The alums had been briefed at dinner the night before, when they’d met with two current 3Ls, Jenna Howarth and Nicole Greenstein, discussed the facts of the case, and voted on the next day’s verdict. “Just to be inside the courtroom was amazing,” says Cousquer-

Okasmaa, vice president and senior counsel at American Express Company. “But frankly, what was most impressive was seeing each justice reacting to the arguments and asking questions, taking on one side and then the other. The level of intellect, thoroughness, sophistication, and deliberation reflected in each question and answer was really inspiring. At a place where arguments really matter, we were witnessing excellence.” For Cousquer-Okasmaa, who had argued before a moot

Supreme Court when she was a student at Cornell Law, the chance to be officially admitted to the SCOTUS bar was too good to pass up, especially when she could share the experience with her husband. “When you’re attending a hearing at the Supreme Court, you can tell that you’re at the highest level of the legal profession,” says Okasmaa, a partner in the New York office of Willkie Farr & Gallagher and a member of the Law School’s Executive Board. “The Supreme Court is such an impressive institution, and even though I’m not a litigator, to be inside that courtroom was to hear the echoes of everything we’d learned in school. Best of all, we got to do it as part of a community, with different generations of Cornell lawyers coming together for this incredible day.”

service is at the heart of our identity as a law school,” said Peñalver, the Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law. “The legal profession has as its core a commitment to the rule of law, which is more important than ever to the future of

our nation and to global stability. At the center of the rule of law is access to justice. By continuing the long, hard fight for justice, tonight’s award winners—as well as all our alumni engaged in public ser-

vice work—are performing a vital service to their country.” Since Comstock, assistant dean for public service, started the Exemplary Public Service Awards, the Law School has recognized nearly one hundred alumni, covering the broadest

Alumni and Students Honored at 12th Annual Exemplary Public Service Awards For the past dozen years, Cornell Law has celebrated its public service alumni with an award ceremony in New York City. On February 17, meeting at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Karen Comstock hosted her final celebration before retirement, with eight alumni honorees, thirteen student honorees, and Dean Eduardo Peñalver opening the evening.

Public service award winners (from left): Deborah Press ‘09, Kathryn Rybak ‘79, Sam Angell ‘88, Lynn Fahey ‘70, Jeffrey Vogt LL.M./J.D. ‘99, and Ronna Blau ‘72 ABOVE:

I want to reaffirm that public service is at the heart of our identity as a law school. The legal profession has as its core a commitment to the rule of law, which is more important than ever to the future of our nation and to global stability. — Eduardo M. Peñalver

“In light of recent events, I want to reaffirm that public

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ALUMNI possible range of attorneys working in the public interest. The 2017 alumni award winners are Samuel Angell ’88, assistant federal defender at the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia, who devotes his practice to representing prisoners on death row; Ronna Blau ’72, deputy chief attorney at New York State Mental Hygiene Legal Services, a pioneering advocate for people with mental disabilities; Lynn W.L. Fahey ’70, attorney-in-charge at Appellate Advocates in New York City, where she’s dedicated her career to defending indigent criminal defendants; and Naomi Post ’79, who combines her background in

advocacy, community organizing, and policy planning as executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund in New York City. Rising Star Award winner Deborah Press ’09, who came to the Law School to study animal legal defense, now oversees regulatory affairs at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Katherine Rybak ’79, who has worked at Indiana Legal Services since graduation, still spends her days fighting for prisoners, debtors, children, and low-income Indiana families. Jeffrey Vogt, LL.M/J.D. ’99, who represented workers in sixty-two countries as legal director of the International Trade Union Confedera-

tion, now leads the law program of the Solidarity Center; and Leslie Wheelock, M.B.A./J.D. ’84, director of the Office of Tribal Relations in the United States Department of Agriculture, continues to fight for food security, improved housing, community development, and treaty rights for Native Americans. In the evening’s student honors, the Freeman Award for Civil-Human Rights, which is awarded to law students who have made the greatest contributions to civil-human rights, was given to Krsna Avila, Julie Bloch, Samantha Elliott, Nicole Gonzalez, Nicholas Jacques, Caitlin Saggese, Nathan Smith, and Adena Wayne. The Stanley E. Gould

Sometimes people don’t understand the work we do, and sometimes people feel we aren’t really working for justice. But we all know the importance of working on behalf of people with limited resources, people who have so much at stake. — Samuel Angell ‘88

ABOVE:

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Student award winners RIGHT: Public service awards ceremony

Prize for Public Interest Law, which is awarded to the thirdyear students who have shown outstanding dedication to serving the public interest, was given to Michael Contino, Ellen Parodi, and Clea Weiss. The Seymour Herzog Memorial Prize, which is awarded to students who demonstrate excellence in the law, commitment to the public interest, and a love of sports, was given to Tim Darby and Sarah Estabrook. “We work hard,” said Angell, whose award launched a week of victories in capital cases, with a vacated death sentence for one client, a new hearing for another, and a reduced plea agreement in a third. “Sometimes people don’t understand

the work we do, and sometimes people feel we aren’t really working for justice. But we all know the importance of working on behalf of people with limited resources, people who have so much at stake. That’s what makes this work so worthwhile.” “It’s fascinating work, and it’s wonderful to be representing people most of society can’t stand,” said Fahey, who’s best known for People v. Jonathan Wheeler-Whichard, where she became the first attorney in New York to overturn a murder conviction by establishing a client’s innocence. “We like to think that only the guilty are convicted, but that’s not really true. A surprising number of people who are not guilty get caught up in the system, and with all the recent exonerations based on DNA evidence, the public is becoming more accepting of the possibility of innocence. I love that, and I love the analytical part of doing what I do, and I love representing the people I represent.” It was a good night for giving back, with Angell thanking Gregory Alexander, Cynthia Farina, Robert Hillman, and Sheri Lynn Johnson, who’d appeared as an expert witness in one of his recent victories. For Fahey, it was a time to remember Betty Friedlander ’59, the first director of the Law School’s legal aid clinic, and for Deborah Press, it was a chance to express her gratitude to Vice Dean Barbara Holden-Smith, who’d helped her start an animal law class,

and Comstock, who’d been encouraging ever since their first meeting. “At the start of my 1L year, I went to talk to Dean Comstock about what I wanted to do, and she was so supportive,” says Press. “Animal protection work isn’t the first thing people think about when it comes to public interest law, and we both knew it was going to be a

challenge to succeed in this field. But she always made me feel supported, always, and she’s done a great job fostering public interest law at Cornell, even for people pursuing the most alternative fields of public service. I wouldn’t have stuck with it if I hadn’t had that nurturing environment, and being at the awards ceremony, I felt so proud for Karen, too.” “It’s always been my favorite evening of the year, so there’s some wistfulness about thinking back on all these twelve celebrations, in the same way I

feel about leaving my job,” said Comstock, who retired at the end of February. “When we were planning the first one, I remember wondering, ‘Is this going to fly?’ And it quickly became clear that it would, and that people would look forward to it year after year. That makes me proud, because in twentythree years at the Law School, I’ve had a lot of good ideas, but this was my best.” n

You can now search for fellow Cornell lawyers by name, class year, city, state, or area of expertise. You can also update your contact information so your classmates can find you!

Class Notes are Online Search for news on your classmates and other Cornell Law School alumni. You can also submit your own notes through the Law School website: lawschool.cornell.edu/alumni/classnotes/index.cfm

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FORUM Spring 2017 Volume 43, No. 1

Christopher David Brouwer EDITOR

In Memoriam John J. Considine, LL.B. ’55 Shawkat J. Dallal ’59 Charles DeBare ‘49

Michael Heise FACULTY EDITOR

Martha P. Fitzgerald ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR COMMUNICATIONS

Marian Rogers COPY EDITOR

Robert R. Douglass, LL.B. ’59 Thomas A. Hampson, LL.B. ’55 Paul G. Hughes ’72 James M. Kieffer, LL.B. ’49 Hon. Frederick B. Lacey ’48 Douglas F. MacLean, J.D./M.B.A. ’00 Robert L. Maider, LL.B. ’58 Stanley Mailman ’52 Richard H. McMahon, LL.B. ’60 Karina Lynn Pulec ’13 Bernard R. Rapoport ’41 Hon. Walter J. Relilhan Jr. ’59 Julie F. Rosefsky ’97 Michael J. Ryan, Jr., LL.B. ’67 James G. Simms ‘65 Jack F. Sinn, LL.B. ’48 Rocco Anthony Solimando, LL.B. ’57 Neil Underberg ’52 Elizabeth P. Wellington, LL.B. ’63

Robin Awes Everett DESIGN DIRECTOR

Shannon Williamson DESIGNER

Kenneth Berkowitz, Christopher Brouwer, Lindsay Cayne, Barbara Esuoso, Blaine Friedlander, Owen Lubozynski, Ian McGullam, Linda Brandt Myers, Sherrie Negrea, Teagan Todd CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

AP Images (p. 35); David Burbank (p. 36); Cornell Marketing Group (p. 11); Cornell University Photographers— Robert Barker (pp. 2, 6,15, 32) Lindsay France (pp. 5-6, 12), Chris Kitchen (pp. 3, 16, 31, 38, 39, 42), Jason Koski (back cover, pp. 6, 8, 30), Patrick Shanahan (pp. 33, 41, inside back cover); da-vooda (pp. 1, 17); Jen Dessinger (p. 6); Robin Awes Everett (pp. 1, 17); Gary Hodges (p. 4); Corinne Kenwood/Cornell Sun (p. 43); Kilograph (front cover, pp. 8-9, 12-13); Sheryl D. Sinkow (pp. 18-19); Jean Tuttle (pp. 1, 21, 23); Jeff Weiner (pp. 7-9, 11-14); Tom Welsh (p. 20) PHOTOS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

QMC Group PRINTER

The editors thank the faculty, staff, alumni, and students of Cornell Law School for their cooperation in the production of this publication. Select articles in the “Briefs” section reprinted courtesy of Cornell Chronicle. Cornell Law School publishes Cornell Law Forum two times per year. It is an eco-friendly publication. Business and editorial offices are located in 119 Myron Taylor Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-4901 (phone: 607-255-6499; email: brouwer@cornell.edu). On the Web: www.forum.law.cornell.edu Forum online: forum.lawschool.cornell.edu ©2017 by Cornell University. All rights reserved.

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Making It New: Naming Opportunities Available for New Spaces in Hughes Hall

The lower levels of Hughes Hall are being converted into modern spaces essential to the fulfillment of the Law Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s educational mission.

We invite Cornell Law alumni and friends to participate in making Hughes Hall new again through a gift that will help us translate vision into reality.

Naming opportunities are available at many levels for a variety of prominent spaces.

For more Information: www.hugheshall.law.cornell.edu or (607) 255-3373

Scholarship support allowed Gargi to excel at Cornell, secure a job at a top firm in a competitive market, and believe that she could become a leader in the legal field.

Change Service requested

CORNELL LAW FORUM

Myron Taylor Hall Ithaca, New York 14853-4901

www.lawschool.cornell.edu

Th e C o r n e l l Te c h L L . M . :

Cornell Law School’s Own Startup on Roosevelt Island, NYC

pa g e 4

Spring 2017 James Grimmelmann Straddles the Law-Tech Divide Karen Comstock, the Law School’s First Public Service Dean, Retires Stanley Mailman ’52: Immigration Law Loses a Pioneer Spring 2017

Launch of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide Law School Celebrates Allan R. Tessler’s Birthday

CORNELL LAW