Beyond Slavery
Helping to Heal At NYU Law’s Annual Alumni Luncheon last January, Sheila Birnbaum ’65, a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan whose iconic stature in products liability and mass torts litigation has earned her the nickname “Queen of Torts,” spoke about her experiences as the current special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, created by Congress in 9/11’s aftermath. The original iteration of the fund was administered by special master Kenneth Feinberg ’70. In 2011, the fund was reopened with an expanded scope. Describing the raw emotion of one claimant, Birnbaum said, “Though for us it’s 13 years since 9/11, for people that were there…it’s as real today as it was then.”
w i l l i a m c a rt er j r ., dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, focused on the 13th Amendment and its unexplored potential in the 18th annual Derrick Bell Lecture on Race in American Society last November. The Supreme Court, Carter said, has historically swung between two poles in its reading of the 13th Amendment—either it refers solely to chattel slavery, or it can be defined more broadly. Carter argued that the framers of the 13th Amendment did not intend to simply outlaw chattel slavery. They meant to dispense with the “surrounding infrastructure of customs, practices, and the systemic entrenched forms of subordination that supported an ideology of white supremacy and enabled the system of slavery.” Carter illustrated the potential broadening of the 13th Amendment with a Second Circuit case. Nelson v. United States arose from the killing of a Jewish man by an African American during the 1991 Crown Heights riots. The defense argued that a federal hate
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crimes law was meant only to protect blacks, not to prosecute them. But the court rejected that claim. Carter explained that the targeting of a Jewish victim because of his background was “closely associated with the slave system,” and that this case showed that the 13th Amendment could be extended to protect not just African Americans but everyone.
The final round of the NYU Law Moot Court Board’s 42nd annual Orison S. Marden Moot Court Competition gave four finalists a chance to argue last April before a bench that included (L-R) Tenth Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch, Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Alice Batchelder, and Second Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs ’73. The case centered on privacy issues involving the border search and seizure of a laptop when the defendant was returning from abroad. William Freeland ’15 and Peter Dubrowski ’14 (L, R) represented the respondent in Salvatore Assante v. United States of America, with Theresa Troupson ’14 and Julie Simeone ’14 (L, R) for the petitioner. The judicial panel named Simeone best oralist.
cahill gordon & reindel llp cravath, swaine & moore llp debevoise & plimpton llp fried, frank, harris, shriver & jacobson llp paul, weiss, rifkind, wharton & garrison llp stroock & stroock & lavan llp sullivan & cromwell llp wachtell, lipton, rosen & katz weil, gotshal & manges llp willkie farr & gallagher llp Find out how your firm’s contributions can be recognized. Please contact Nick Vagelatos at 212.998.6007 or nick.vagelatos@nyu.edu.