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federal or state court, and how to obtain attorney’s fees. Featured panelists included: The Hon. Helen Ginger Berrigan, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana; Samuel S. Dalton, J.D. ’54, H’94, Esq.; Soren Gisleson, Herman, Herman and Katz; Gerald H. Goldstein, Goldstein, Goldstein and Hilley; Mary E. Howell, Esq.; the Hon. Calvin
Johnson (Ret.), J.D. ’78, Orleans Parish Criminal District Court; William E. Rittenberg, Rittenberg, Samuel and Phillips, L.L.C.; Nicholas J. Trenticosta, Center for Equal Justice; and the Hon. Franz Zibilich, J.D. ’84, Orleans Parish Criminal District Court.
Gerald H. Goldstein
STUDENTS sociation (www.ilsa.org), during 2011 – 2012. Her topics included forced sterilization in Slovakia; a Congolese defendant of the ICC running for president in DRC from his cell; Internet regulation in Belarus; and the controversial conviction of Ukraine’s former prime minister. ••••••
Lisa Bothwell, a fourth-year law student who worked in the Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic and Center for Social Justice, was the first recipient of the Nancy J. Bloch Leadership & Advocacy Scholarship from the National Association of the Deaf. Bothwell is assisting the NAD with its intake of deaf truck drivers for their commercial driver’s license exemptions. She has received a Gillis Long fellowship through the law school to research special education concerns at the Bloch advocacy center. Prior to attending Loyola, she was the community emergency preparedness information network national public relations specialist for Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. ••••••
Law student Justina LaSalle contributed four articles to ILSA Quarterly, a publication of the International Law Students As-
Law student Matthew O’Gorman and Assistant Clinical Professor Stephen Singer participated in the case of State of Louisiana v. Melvin Goldman consolidated with State of Louisiana v. Glenn Dale Nelson (they represented Goldman while Southern represented Nelson). The decision is reported at 85 So. 3d 21 (La. 2012). Both Mr. Goldman and Mr. Nelson were charged, and after a jury trial, ultimately convicted of second degree murder in Ouachita Parish. During jury selection, the prosecutor accused Mr. Goldman, Mr. Nelson, and their separate counsel of exercising their peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory fashion. Accordingly, the trial judge reseated the jurors who had been stuck by the defense and prohibited both defendants and their separate counsel from using any of their remaining peremptory challenges on any of the reseated jurors, even those struck by the other. Although the intermediate appellate court affirmed, the Louisiana Supreme Court unanimously reversed, agreeing with O’Gorman and
Singer’s positions—that trial court erred in finding a “reverseBatson” violation based upon a discriminatory effect and in the absence of discriminatory intent, that race neutral reasons had been provided for the challenges, and that one defendant cannot be barred from striking a reseated juror that that defendant had not improperly struck. ••••••
Law students Margaret Craven and Melissa Hill, under the supervision of Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Loyola Law Clinic Ramona G. Fernandez, handled a termination of parental rights case and various exceptions. After a full-day trial, they won the case. The judge granted the exception of no right of action. ••••••
Against all odds, Family Law student practitioners Germani Hardeman, Brittany Dunn, and Krystel Garcia won a custody trial in the spring 2012 semester for their client, a young father. The students, under the supervision of Clinical Professor of Law Cheryl P. Buchert, represented the father for two years prior to the trial with student practitioner Katherine Crouch negotiating a complex Interim Consent Judgment after the first year. Prior to the trial, a mental health professional examined the parents in a court ordered custody evaluation according
with the best interests of the child factors. The student practitioners filed a Petition and numerous Motions; argued before the Court on their Motions; conducted formal discovery; prepared witness and exhibit lists; and hosted numerous settlement conferences before the trial date. At the trial, the students examined the father and cross examined the mother and the custody evaluator. Even though the custody evaluator testified in favor of the mother being designated the domiciliary parent, the Court ruled that the students’ client be named the domiciliary parent of the parties’ young child. ••••••
Four 2012 graduates received federal judicial clerkships for 2012 – 2013: Maria Teresa Gonzalez, with the Hon. Gustavo Gelpi in the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico; Keriann Langley, with the Hon. Carl Barbier, J.D. ’70, in the U.S. Eastern District of Louisiana; Lacey E. Rochester, with the Hon. Wendy Hagenau in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Georgia; and Meera Unnithan Sossamon, with the Hon. Ivan L.R. Lemelle, J.D. ’74, in the U.S. Eastern District of Louisiana.
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