Rutgers Law School Clinic News Fall 2023

Clinic News FALL 2023

New Dean Reveals Goals for the Law School When Johanna Bond arrived on campus as the new dean of Rutgers Law School on July 1, she brought with her extensive teaching experience, hands-on administrative expertise, a passion for human rights, and sharp clinical skills. But equally important tools in her kit include an extraordinary appreciation for Rutgers Law, a contagious excitement to reinvigorate the school’s identity as the People’s Electric Law School, and a passion for building on the strength and unique culture of each campus while charting a path forward for the school as a whole.

A Multifaceted Career Path Bond began her legal career as a student at the University of Minnesota Law School. Initially attracted to the school’s well-developed human rights program, Bond benefitted from some extraordinary opportunities as a student, including working with the International Women’s Rights Action Watch. As part of this program, she was able to travel to Beijing in 1995 for the Fourth World Conference on Women, and was actively involved in a working group that drafted the meeting’s outcome documents. “It was incredible to do that kind of work as a student,” she says. “Providing students access to experiential learning opportunities during their time in law school is important to me. I’m glad to see that it’s also a central value at Rutgers Law, and one that I’m committed to supporting as dean.”

After graduation, Bond held a series of positions focused on human rights, anticipating a career in practice. But her path shifted when she earned a Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship placing her at Georgetown University where, in addition to litigation, she helped design and teach a clinical course. “I hadn’t planned on going into academia, but I realized that I loved teaching,” she says. “At the same time, I was glad to keep one foot in the activist world because it was a clinic doing real work for real clients.”

Rutgers Law School Dean Johanna Bond

After a two-year stint teaching at the University of Wyoming College of Law, Bond was recruited to Washington and Lee University in 2008.

During her time as a faculty member, Bond was affiliated with the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies program as well as the Africana Studies program before being tapped in 2012 and again in 2016 to serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Her impressive administrative track record included managing the academic program, advising students, expanding the school’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, supervising faculty, managing the budget, ensuring compliance, and more. “I did a little bit of everything in that position because I was part

of a small, three-person leadership team,” Bond says. “I was able to get an up-close look at the operational aspects of running a law school as well as the big picture view of the mission and vision—and I loved all of it.”

First Priorities Bond’s excitement for Rutgers Law School is, undeniably, contagious. “Issues around access, affordability, and social justice are central to the mission of the school,” she says, “and these are all issues I care deeply about.”

Her first goal is to learn as much as possible about Rutgers by speaking with and listening to as many members of the community as she can. But she’s also ready to hit the ground running with a focus on improving an already Continued on page 11

Judge Vacates Conviction of NJ Innocence Project Client The New Jersey Innocence Project at Rutgers University (NJIP) has helped exonerate a Hudson County man who served 20 years for a crime he did not commit. Dion Miller, now age 54, was released from prison on July 27.

He was represented by NJIP Director, Professor Laura Cohen, and Managing Attorney Nyssa Taylor. Mr. Miller was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Romeo Cavero in 2007 and sentenced to a term of 30 years in prison without the possibility of parole.

Earlier this year, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Conviction Review Unit launched an extensive reinvestigation of the case and concluded that Mr. Miller was innocent of the crime. The Unit joined in the NJIP’s motion for a new trial, which Hudson County Judge Mitzy Galis-Menendez granted. The Attorney General’s Office then moved for a dismissal of the indictment with prejudice. Mr. Miller’s exoneration is the second sought by the Unit since its formation in 2019.

Mr. Miller’s conviction was based entirely on three false confessions that detectives obtained after subjecting him to 17 hours of grueling and coercive interrogation. Those statements were inconsistent with each other and inconsistent with the other evidence in the case, and bore many of the known hallmarks of false confessions. Mr. Miller steadfastly pursued every available legal avenue to establish his innocence over two decades, often without the benefit of legal representation.

“Mr. Miller, his family, and the New Jersey Innocence Project at Rutgers University are deeply grateful to Attorney General Platkin, Director Murray, and the entire team of the Conviction Review Unit for their vigorous, thorough, and thoughtful work on this case, and for their determination to correct this grave injustice,” said Professor Cohen. “We hope that the lessons learned from this matter, particularly with regard to the causes and frequency of false confessions, will lead to exonerations of other innocent people and help

Rutgers Duplicating and Mailing Rutgers Law School 123 Washington Street Newark, New Jersey 07102

prevent future wrongful convictions in New Jersey.”

Officially launched in 2022 under the aegis of the Rutgers Criminal and Youth Justice Dion Miller Clinic, the NJIP represents factually innocent people in New Jersey in their efforts to vacate their wrongful convictions and obtain their freedom from incarceration. It is the first New Jersey affiliate of the National Innocence Network.

Watch video of New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin announcing recent action by the Statewide Conviction Review Unit

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Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage

PA I D Newark, New Jersey Permit No. 5287

2 CLINIC NEWS

A Letter From Rutgers Law School’s Clinical Leadership ANJU GUPTA AND JOANNE GOTTESMAN ON THE STATE OF THE RUTGERS CLINICAL PROGRAM Although it is still early in the academic year, we already have much to celebrate! We welcomed our new Dean, Johanna Bond, who joins Rutgers Law School after a distinguished career at Washington & Lee School of Law as well as a stint as the Executive Director of the Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program at Georgetown Law, where she designed and taught a clinical course and developed a deep appreciation for clinical teaching. We also welcomed three new clinical faculty in the Newark location this year: Greg Baltz, Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Housing Justice & Tenant Solidarity Clinic, served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Rutgers last year; Kathryn Sabbeth, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Housing Justice & Tenant Solidarity Clinic, joins us from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Tomica Burke Saul, Assistant Professor of Law and CoDirector of the Community & Transactional Lawyering Clinic, joins us from Columbia Law School. The Newark location also welcomes Jenise Ly as our new Assistant Director for Administration. Searches are currently underway for tenure-track clinical hires in both locations for the 2024-2025 academic year.

CONTENTS A Letter From Rutgers Law School’s Clinical Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 NJIP Client Exonerated After 29 Years Behind Bars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Rutgers Law Clinic Represents Tenant Suing to Take Over Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Legislative Advocacy Launches Two Bills . . 4

Associate Dean for Clinical Education in Newark, Anju Gupta

Director of Clinical Programs in Camden, Joanne Gottesman

We are still basking in the glow of the success of our colleagues who recently transitioned to the tenure-track and obtained tenure: Randi Mandelbaum, Ruth Anne Robbins, and Sandra Simkins. Several other clinic faculty members also transitioned to the tenure track and will be going up for tenure and promotion in the coming years. As the newsletter highlights, Rutgers clinical faculty are writing and publishing on subjects ranging from racial equity in social security law to challenges faced by immigrant youth to barriers to proving innocence. Our clinics have also achieved litigation advocacy successes in matters ranging from political asylum to improved window guard laws to protections for survivors of domestic violence.

MSP’s shared history as programs arising out of the Newark rebellion in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Both programs will celebrate their 55th anniversaries in the coming two years.

In Newark, the Clinical Program, in conjunction with the Minority Student Program (MSP), recently held a People’s Electric tie-dye party to welcome students back for a new academic year and to celebrate the clinics’ and

The Clinical Programs in Camden and Newark received renewed and expanded external grant funding of over $4 million for projects ranging from representation of tenants facing eviction and substandard housing conditions (in the form of a state grant to the Housing & Tenant Solidarity Clinic in Newark and the Housing Advocacy Clinic in Camden), immigrants in detention and in removal proceedings (in the form of a state grant to the Immigrant Rights Clinic in Newark), immigrant children in foster care (in the form of a state grant to the Immigrant Justice Clinic in Camden and the Child Advocacy Clinic in Newark), and individuals who have been wrongfully convicted (in the form of a grant to the NJ Innocence Project). Stay tuned for news of even more funding—and hiring—soon.

More Than Two Dozen New U.S. Citizens Took Oath at Rutgers Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Prestigious Award Given for Legal Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 From Risk to Remedy: Clinic Students Improve Local Window Guard Laws . . . . . . . 6 Barriers to Innocence Symposium . . . . . . . . 6 Clinic Files Motion and Brief on Vote-By-Mail Age Discrimination Case . . . . . 7 Helping Migrants at the Border Went Beyond Legal Assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Clinic Files Supreme Court Brief in Support of Immigration Journalists . . . . . . . 9 New Clinical Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Economic Justice Clinic Wins National Record High Fee Award Under Equal Access to Justice Act in SSI Case . . . . . . . . 10 Helping a Stigmatized Community Amongst Military Veterans . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Clinic Founding Director Retires After 26 Years of Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 New Rutgers Law Graduate Receives First Intellectual Property Clinic Award . . 12 Legal Action Launched Over Untimely Expungements in New Jersey . . . . . . . . . . 13 Clinical Faculty Publications 2023-24 . . . . 13 State Legislature Renews Funding for NJ Housing Justice Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 International Human Rights Clinic Secures Asylum for Celebrated Mexican Journalist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Record-Breaking Donation Will Establish New Rutgers Law Clinic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

NJIP Client Exonerated After 29 Years Behind Bars A Queens, New York judge vacated the conviction of Armond McCloud, 49, who was forced to falsely confess at age 20 to the 1994 shooting murder of 22-year-old Kei Sunada.

Mr. McCloud was incarcerated from August 8, 1994, until his release on parole on January 31, 2023.

“It feels great to have my innocence finally recognized after 29 years,” Mr. McCloud said.

He is represented by Rutgers Law School Professor Laura Cohen, Director of the New Jersey Innocence Project at Rutgers University; Professor Steven Drizin, Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at NorthwesternPritzker Law School; and Laura Nirider, former co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions and now a wrongful conviction attorney in private practice. His conviction was vacated at the joint request of his legal team and the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, whose Conviction Integrity Unit reinvestigated the case and concluded that newly discovered evidence compelled dismissal of the case against him. Also supporting Mr. McCloud’s claim of innocence is a new crime scene reconstruction report prepared by Professor Kevin Parmalee of the New Jersey

Rutgers Law Professor Laura Cohen, Armond McCloud and Attorney Laura Nirider Institute of Technology. In addition, dozens of Rutgers Law School students in Professor Cohen’s Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic assisted in this case over the past three years.

Continued on page 3

FALL 2023 3

ARMOND McCLOUD Continued from page 2 Professor Cohen remarked, “As Mr. McCloud’s case painfully illustrates, young people are particularly and acutely vulnerable to standard police interrogation tactics and, therefore, far more likely to confess falsely than adults.

In order to prevent similar injustices from occurring, New York must ensure that every youth in police custody consults with an attorney before being asked to waive their Miranda rights and prohibit the use of uncounseled statements in court.”

The conviction was based solely on a false confession Mr. McCloud gave after being questioned for 13 hours by a team of NYPD detectives, which included disgraced former detective Carlos Gonzalez. During the all-night interrogation, during which he was held incommunicado, Mr. McCloud was falsely told that his mother’s safety would be in jeopardy unless he told police that he killed Mr. Sunada, who had been found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head on August 4 in the fourth-floor stairwell of a building in LeFrak City, a Queens apartment complex. Police also engaged in other coercive, deceptive and threatening tactics. Eventually, Mr. McCloud signed a short statement falsely admitting his involvement in the crime and, subsequently, was subjected to video questioning by an assistant district attorney. This “confession” was the sole evidence that led to his conviction for first-degree homicide and sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

Ms. Nirider added, “In this case, a bad police investigation ended up telling on itself.

Detective Gonzalez’s mistaken idea about where this crime happened—he thought it happened in a hallway, when it actually happened in a separate stairwell—ended up in Mr. McCloud’s confession. It is crystal clear that Mr. McCloud’s so-called confession was nothing more than him being forced to repeat the police’s theories.”

This is the third false confession cased linked to Detective Gonzalez, the lead investigator in the death of Kei Sunada. Since Mr. McCloud’s conviction, Detective Gonzalez has become notorious for obtaining the false confessions of at least two of the now-exonerated defendants in 1989’s Central Park Five case, Kevin Richardson and Antron McCrae.

He also obtained the false confession of now-exonerated Johnny Hincapie, who was wrongfully convicted of the 1990 murder of Brian Watkins in the so-called Utah Tourist case.

Yusef Salaam, candidate for New York City Council and one of the accused men in the Central Park Five case, said, “I’m both glad and saddened that yet another case has been uncovered in which the NYPD forced multiple innocent young Black men to falsely confess to a crime they didn’t commit. It’s past time to make sure this never happens again.”

Professor Drizin added, “Most homicide detectives go their entire careers without obtaining a false confession. It appears that Detective Gonzalez has participated in obtaining at least five false confessions that we know of in three different cases. If the Brooklyn

Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic students who worked on the case include (L-R) Madeline Gayle, Anna Giblin, Prof. Laura Cohen, Armond McCloud, Attorney Laura Nirider, Werdeh Hassan, Drew Bjorklund (Northwestern), Jalen Porter DA’s audit of disgraced former Brooklyn Detective Scarcella is any indication, then there are likely more false confessions to be uncovered.”

Professor Drizin and Ms. Nirider are well known for their expertise in police interrogations and false confessions, including their representation of Wisconsin man Brendan Dassey, whose wrongful conviction was profiled in the hit Netflix series “Making a Murderer.”

Professor Cohen, who co-founded the New Jersey Innocence Project and directs the Rutgers Law School Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic, is a national youth justice expert who has been involved in numerous exonerations and other successful post-conviction relief efforts on behalf of wrongfully convicted young people.

Rutgers Law Clinic Represents Tenants Suing to Take Over Building The Rutgers Law School Housing Justice & Tenant Solidarity Clinic in Newark is representing tenants filing two lawsuits over the deteriorating condition of their building.

Members of the 75 Prospect Street Tenant Association in East Orange announced on August 16 that they were filing the lawsuits against their landlord, who they allege is responsible. Known as “The Castle,” this 44-unit historic building has a well-documented history of neglect, such as building-wide leaks, mold, and dysfunctional elevators. The lawsuits allege that the landlord, Prospect Castle LLC and their management companies, Platinum Management and Livingo, have allowed the building to deteriorate as part of a plan to empty the building of tenants, who are protected by the City’s robust rent control ordinance. The lawsuits also allege that prior landlords, 75 Prospect Holdings LLC and their management company, OneWall, allowed the building to deteriorate as well.

The first lawsuit asks the court to appoint a receiver to take over management of the property, collect rents, and dedicate them to repairs after years of mismanagement. The Federal National Mortgage Association (“Fannie Mae”) is also named in the suit as a lender for the property.

The second lawsuit seeks damages for the horrendous conditions with which the tenants have lived, discrimination against tenants with disabilities, and for violations of East Orange’s rent control ordinance.

Alaina Thomas, attorney with the Rutgers Law School Housing Justice & Tenant Solidarity Clinic, stated, “The lawsuits filed today intend to address the ongoing issues at the property, first, by asking the court to appoint a receiver,

The 75 Prospect Street Tenant Association in East Orange, NJ, held a press conference on August 16 at their building. a court appointed individual or management company that takes charge of a dilapidated building, assumes the role of landlord, and uses the rent to make necessary repairs. The second lawsuit is for damages to compensate residents for the years they have endured these horrible conditions.”

Tenant Association president, Erica Coleman, moved to 75 Prospect in 2017 and states that she has complained to building management about the persistent leak in her unit for years.

Recently, Ms. Coleman was injured when a water-damaged ceiling in her apartment collapsed, hitting her on the head, right before the filing of these complaints.

“I complained for years about the leak in my daughter’s bathroom,” she said. “A judge even ordered my landlord to repair it. After years of patchwork repair jobs, the leak got so bad it caused the ceiling in the neighboring room to collapse two weeks ago. The collapsing ceiling hit me on the head, and I spent the night in the emergency room. I suffered a concussion.”

The consistent leaks have led to the significant mold infiltration, which the landlord has failed to abate. Tenant Carla Evans’ quadriplegic son has been living outside the unit for years. His doctors told Evans that they could not advise his return home because of the mold in the apartment.

Continued on page 16

4 CLINIC NEWS

REAL WORLD IMPACT TAX COURT CASE SUCCESSFULLY SETTLED

BY CLINIC The Federal Tax Law Clinic was successful in settling a Tax Court case involving two brothers who lost their family business to a “partner” who turned out to be an organized crime figure who embezzled large sums of money from the business before getting convicted and going to jail. Years later, the clients were awarded restitution from the Department of Justice for the stolen amounts that caused liquidation of their companies. The IRS taxed that amount, proposing a large tax deficiency and penalty on our clients. The rules on the taxation of restitution and renumeration are very complicated and here involved analysis of corporate tax returns.

The determined students felt that it would be inequitable to hold the brothers liable for this tax when they had previously lost everything.

After much analysis, they got the Government to concede the case using a creative argument for exclusion under a technical Internal Revenue Code section dealing with the taxpayers’ basis in the sale or exchange of stock upon a corporate liquidation.

SUBSTANTIAL AWARD FOR DISABLED CHILD SECURED A father came to the Child & Family Advocacy in October 2021 because his nine-year-old daughter had many cognitive difficulties.

Professor Meredith Schalick and her law students at Rutgers Law School in Camden helped this father through the process of appealing his child’s denial of Supplemental Security Income benefits. The administrative judge law recently issued a decision that the child had severe impairments including learning disabilities, speech dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder. The judge also ruled that the child has been under a disability as defined in the Social Security Act since February 2021, which will result in a substantial retroactive award for this child.

Matthew Divis ‘23, Prof. Ruth Anne Robbins, and Nicholas Gangemi ‘23 testifying at the New Jersey Statehouse in January 2023.

Legislative Advocacy Advances Two Bills Though law students are no strangers to research, it’s rare for their work to land on the floor of a governing body and lead to concrete legal change, all before they pass the bar. But that’s just what happened after Professor Ruth Anne Robbins reached out to members of the New Jersey Legislature and offered to help advance two significant bills.

keep New Jersey’s civil protection laws the strongest in the nation was the capstone of my legal education,” says Nicholas Gangemi ’23, one of the students who testified. “The clinical work, research, and advocacy led by Rutgers faculty represents an institutional commitment to public service and highlights the impact that Rutgers students can have prior to graduation.”

Beginning in spring 2022, Prof. Robbins and her students benchmarked existing laws, gathered client stories, conducted nationwide statistical research and, ultimately, testified before state legislators. The result? One newly enacted state law and another bill awaiting final passage in the Senate. This kind of work will have a formal home at Rutgers Law School beginning in 2024 when Robbins launches the Legislative Advocacy Clinic.

Bill S-1809: Expanding the Understanding of Domestic Violence Dynamics In addition to physical abuse, perpetrators of domestic violence can often practice what’s known as coercive control. A hallmark of abusive relationships, coercive control includes (but isn’t limited to) behaviors like isolating the victim from family and friends, and controlling access to medication, medical treatment, or transportation. The concept of coercive control is not currently included in the New Jersey Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (PDVA), which means that judges are not required to consider these abuses for victims seeking a restraining order.

VASPA: Expanding Victim Protection New Jersey has two parallel systems that abuse victims can use to obtain restraining orders against their abusers. The first system—the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act—is for those in a “family-like” relationship with their abuser (for example, current or former spouses or dating partners) and provides extraordinary protections, including restraining orders. Victims who don’t have a family-like relationship with their abuser have been eligible for similar protections through the 2015 Sexual Assault Survivor Protection Act (SASPA), but only in very specific circumstances. Senate Bill 1517 sought to expand SASPA to include two additional circumstances: stalking and cyber harassment.

After researching how these cases are handled in other states and how New Jersey can better support these victims in attaining restraining orders, Prof. Robbins and two of her students testified before Assembly and Senate committees in the fall of 2022 and spring of 2023.

On July 24, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed Bill 1517 into law, rebranding SASPA as the Victim’s Assistance and Survivor Protection Act (VASPA).

“This new law gives a pathway to people who have been stalked or harassed online to receive a restraining order without having to go through the criminal procedure of punishing the perpetrator with an arrest, court proceeding, and sentencing,” Robbins explains.

For students, participating in this process was invaluable. “Representing survivors in the Domestic Violence Clinic and advocating to

What PDVA does require is that victims demonstrate that a restraining order is necessary to prevent future harm; that said, the courts have not articulated how a litigant can demonstrate that need.

“The lack of a clearly defined ‘necessity’ test has presented a vexing issue for judges and lawyers but poses a much larger problem for selfrepresented litigants who have no real notice that they must present evidence of ‘necessity,’ and no guidance about how to do so,” says Gangemi. At the behest of the NJ Coalition to End Domestic Violence, Robbins and her students set to work on researching and substantiating these clarifications and changes.

If enacted, Bill A-1475 places litigants on notice that they must provide evidence of “necessity” to obtain protection, and further permits judges to consider evidence of coercive control in their analysis of whether the victim “needs” a restraining order. The bill passed the Assembly at the end of March, becoming S-1809 as it awaits passage by the Senate, before it can land on the Governor’s desk for signing.

“Many domestic violence cases are individuals representing themselves without the help of an attorney,” Robbins adds. “The hope is that this bill can help victims see these examples of abusive control explicitly in the law and empower them to seek relief.”

FALL 2023 5

More Than Two Dozen New U.S. Citizens Took Oath at Rutgers Law More than two dozen people from 18 countries took the U.S. Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States and became U.S. citizens in an emotional ceremony at Rutgers Law in Camden on April 19, 2023. The event also marked the 10th anniversary of the Rutgers Law Immigrant Justice Clinic.

Linda K. Albarouki, a native of Venezuela, was one of 27 new U.S. citizens who lifted her right hand, repeated the Oath, and received her Naturalization certificate as friends and family looked on. “I feel very excited and grateful. It was a great experience,” she said. “I feel very happy that this happened. I always say that things happen for a reason, and you never have to ask why.”

Senior U.S. District Judge Hon. Joseph H. Rodriguez ‘58 administered the Oath and delivered a powerful keynote speech, demonstrating how his life has come full circle as a first generation American himself. Judge Rodriguez was born in Camden to a Puerto Rican mother and Cuban father who survived the 1918 sinking of the passenger liner SS Carolina. Judge Rodriguez became the first Latino appointed to the federal bench when he was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in 1985. He took his oath for the Bench in the same courtroom where his father took the Naturalization Oath.

Coincidentally years later, Judge Rodriguez wrote the court order protecting the salvage efforts of divers who rediscovered the wreck of the SS Carolina off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey where it sank.

“American liberties are now your liberties,” Judge Rodriguez told the new citizens.

That wasn’t the only full circle moment.

Xiomara Urán ‘15 originally represented Aleyda Ruiz Ceron as a law student in the Immigrant Justice Clinic when Ceron was a high school student who began seeking asylum in 2014.

Urán traveled from Washington State to witness Ceron become an American citizen at the ceremony. Urán, a native of Colombia, is now working as an immigration attorney representing immigrant detainees.

“It was a very emotional case for me,” Urán said. “It meant a lot because had I not had the privilege of my parents’ education, and what that implied in the visa system, I myself would have had to seek asylum in the United States.”

Rutgers Law clinic students Layla Al Tukmachi ’23 and Nayomi Torres-Velez ’24 also represented Ceron in her naturalization process and were there to help her celebrate the moment.

Immigrant Justice Clinic Director Joanne Gottesman said, “As a clinical professor, it doesn’t get much better than this: having the chance to celebrate with a client at the end of a long and arduous immigration journey, to see former students using their talents to represent those least able to access a lawyer, and connecting former and current students with each other, and with a shared client and her family.”

The Rutgers Immigrant Justice Clinic represents low-income South Jersey residents in immigration matters, focusing primarily on removal defense and representation of victims of crime. Legal assistance is provided by law students acting under the supervision of a licensed attorney.

Senior U.S. District Judge Hon. Joseph H. Rodriguez ‘58 administered the U.S. Naturalization Oath of Allegiance at the ceremony on Rutgers Law’s bridge in Camden on April 19, 2023.

In her remarks, Professor Gottesman mentioned that there are four ways to become a United States citizen. “Three are by operation of law – essentially automatic once the requirements are met,” she said. “The fourth way, citizenship through naturalization, requires many affirmative acts and difficult decisions, usually over a period of years or even decades. It often involves some pain and loss—leaving family and friends, your native language, and familiar and beloved foods and scents. It is the culmination of that process, and the opportunities for increased civic engagement that citizenship brings, that we pause to recognize here today with you and your families and friends.”

Several members of the Rutgers Law community also spoke about their own, or their families’, citizenship journeys including Professor Emeritus Roger S. Clark and Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project (RICAP) Managing Attorney Jason Hernandez. Scan the QR code on the right to watch “Rutgers Stories of Citizenship” which was produced for the ceremony by filmmakers Mary Hewey, RICAP Paralegal, and her partner, Jen Bagley, of Wilmarth Gertie Photodrama.

Hernandez said, “Citizenship is not required to contribute to your community, but it certainly empowers one to shape and participate in it, in a new way. Register to vote, vote in primaries, vote in general elections, apply for government jobs, petition for family members from whom you’ve been separated, travel freely and, most

of all, live without fear that you do not belong here, because you do. Welcome home.”

In that vein, Simanti Lahiri, Program Coordinator for Student Civic Engagement, led Rutgers Civic Scholars and volunteers from RUC Votes Coalition in a voter registration drive for new citizens after the ceremony.

Special thanks to the Field Director Keith Dorr and the staff of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Mount Laurel Field Office for collaborating on the event.

View more photos from the April 19 ceremony at Rutgers Law–Camden

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View the “Rutgers Stories of Citizenship” Video

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6 CLINIC NEWS

From Risk to Remedy: Clinic Students Improve Local Window Guard Laws Anyone with a young child knows they can be inquisitive and daring, and that it only takes one moment for an accident to happen. But a new Newark, New Jersey amendment is protecting families from one significant safety hazard, thanks to help from multiple teams of students across Rutgers Law School, Rutgers Medical School, and their community partners.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says that, every year, 3,300 children under age 5 require emergency treatment after falling from a window. In the summer of 2018 alone, two children died and more were injured in Newark, requiring treatment at the University Hospital Emergency Department.

Professor Ruth Anne Robbins

Prestigious Award Given for Legal Writing Rutgers Law Professor Ruth Anne Robbins is the recipient of the 2023 Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of Legal Writing. The honor is awarded by the Association of Legal Writing Directors and the Legal Writing Institute (LWI). The Thomas F. Blackwell Award is presented annually to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to improve the field of legal writing by demonstrating an ability to nurture and motivate students to excellence; a willingness to help other legal writing educators improve their teaching skills or their legal writing programs; and an ability to create and integrate new ideas for teaching and motivating legal writing educators and students.

Robbins is a Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School in Camden, where she has taught since 1997. She is a Past President of LWI and a longtime Board member of “Legal Communication and Rhetoric: JALWD,” currently serving as Editor-in-Chief Emeritus.

She is also a co-founder of the Applied Legal Storytelling International Conferences, co-sponsored by LWI and the Clinical Legal Education Association.

Called “the consummate teacher” by her nominators, Prof. Robbins is a four-time recipient of Rutgers’s Lawyering Professor of the Year Award and, in 2018, she was awarded the prestigious Lindback Foundation Teaching Award. She is also a prolific scholar and a dedicated leader and mentor. In the words of her nominators, “Few members of the legal writing community have made so many far-reaching contributions to our field as Ruth Anne Robbins. She has been a leader in helping individual members of our community, as well as our collective group, succeed. Through her leadership roles and committee work, she has raised the profile of our membership and helped professors across the country excel in both teaching and scholarship. Moreover, she has been a thoughtful leader on the cutting edge of legal writing scholarship and pedagogy.”

While a Newark city ordinance enabled tenants to request window guards, many were unaware of this right. Experts believed that more could be done to prevent window fall tragedies, and that a more proactive approach would be to require landlords to ask tenants if children reside or spend significant time in the home and install window guards if they do.

In response to what they were seeing in their emergency room, residents from University Hospital reached out to the HEAL Collaborative, a medical-legal-social work partnership housed in the Education and Health Law Clinic (EHLC) at Rutgers Law School in Newark. In addition to its work with the HEAL Collaborative, EHLC provides free legal representation to low-income parents of children with disabilities in special education matters.

For the nearly five years that followed, cohorts of law students and pediatric medical residents worked with the Greater Newark Healthcare Coalition’s Legal and Advocacy Subcommittee (GNHCC) and the Newark Department of Health to advocate for a change to the ordinance that would require landlords to proactively inquire about and install window guards where needed. They researched the data, reviewed and compared existing laws, educated community partners, drafted and negotiated the language for an amended ordinance, and advocated for its passage.

“Being a part of the EHLC was easily the highlight of my law school experience,” says Hannah Argul ‘22. “Not only did I get the chance to represent parents of children with special needs, but I was lucky enough to work with a team on a critical public health project.

It was an experience I would have never had if I had not joined the clinic.”

Continued on page 7

Barriers to Innocence Symposium The New Jersey Innocence Project at Rutgers University hosted “Barriers to Innocence: Identifying, Investigating, and Undoing Wrongful Convictions,” a full-day symposium featuring experts on wrongful conviction, legal scholars, and exonerees from around the country. Co-sponsored by the Rutgers Law Review and the Center on Criminal Justice, Youth Rights, and Race, the conference explored a wide range of issues, including: • Anatomy of a Wrongful Conviction: The Adnan Syed Case • Youth, Race, and Wrongful Conviction • Wrongful Convictions, Racial Injustice, and Economic Inequity

• Conviction Review Units • Emerging Issues in Wrongful Conviction • Pursuing Innocence Adnan Syed, whose case was featured on the “Serial” podcast, surprised participants by calling in to discuss the latest developments in his legal labyrinth.

Practitioners, academics, students, and people with lived experience in the system found the program on March 31 challenging, inspiring, informative and deeply moving. Articles by several of the speakers will be published in an upcoming symposium issue of the “Rutgers University Law Review.”

Left to right: Professor Laura Cohen, NJIP Director; Erica Suter, Attorney for Adnan Syed; Professor Laura Nirider, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

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WINDOW GUARDS Continued from page 6 On August 2, 2023, the Newark City Council voted unanimously to pass an amendment to the city’s window guard ordinance that now places the onus on landlords to ask tenants if they have children under age 10 living or spending substantial time in the home. If so, the law requires that the landlord purchase and install window guards to prevent falls.

The amendment also says that tenants can ask their landlords to install window guards for any reason (for example, if there are children with disabilities over age 10 at risk of falls in the home) and that their request must be

granted. To spread the word, the EHLC plans to collaborate with the Newark Department of Health and GNHCC on a public awareness and community education campaign this fall.

“The success of the initiative demonstrates the benefits of interprofessional education and collaboration as well as community engagement in addressing health and social problems,” says Professor Jennifer N. Rosen Valverde, legal director of the HEAL Collaborative. “The law students and medical residents learned quickly that collaboration across disciplines is challenging and can be frustrating, but the positive results here— potentially saving children’s lives—are without a doubt worth the time and effort.”

Clinic Files Motion and Brief on Vote-by-Mail Age Discrimination Case Rutgers International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) Supervising Attorney Yael Bromberg, Esq., and Clinic students filed a motion and accompanying amicus brief arguing that the Texas vote-by-mail law is discriminatory. It includes data on the impact on young voters overall and the increased stratification among minority youth voters who are ineligible to vote by mail due to their age. While numerous parties served as amici during previous phases of the litigation amid the 2020 Presidential Election, the amicus brief serves as the only amici voice during the present phase of litigation. The brief was filed with the support of local counsel Jared G. LeBlanc of LeBlanc Flanery PLLC. The amici in this case are The Andrew Goodman Foundation (AGF), March For Our Lives (MFOL), and National Vote At Home Institute (NVASHI), which filed an amicus brief in Cascino v. Scott before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case, originally brought in 2020 in emergency litigation related to the pandemic election, challenges a law that requires young Americans to satisfy a limited set of statutory excuses to qualify to vote by mail, while making vote-by-mail automatically available to voters over the age of 65 who do not need to offer any excuses.

“The law in place in Texas, and six other states in the nation, unequivocally violates the Twenty-Sixth Amendment by allowing regular voting methods to be provided to one set of voters, while — simply on account of age — another set of voters is left without,” explains Bromberg, AGF’s Special Counsel & Strategic Advisor to the President and CEO. “Age discrimination in voting-by-mail untowardly impacts the rise of youth voters and minority youth in particular, given emerging voting patterns and the changing demographics of Texas and the nation.”

Data consistently demonstrates that young people want to vote by mail. In the 2020 Presidential Election, 70% of young voters cast their ballots early or by mail. Additionally, research indicates that expansive vote-bymail policies lead to increased voter turnout, particularly among young voters and voters of color, as further detailed within the amicus brief.

“My contribution for the brief was the racial impact section and to provide assistance and research to formatting standards in the 5th circuit,” said third-year Clinic student

Kenneth Saint Preux. “I am so proud that my contribution (in combination with all my clinic members) helped create this amicus brief.

This brief will definitely be one of my major achievements as a student of law at Rutgers University at Newark!”

Directed by Rutgers Law Professor Penny Venetis, IHRC is a pioneer in using international human rights law in courts throughout the United States. Clinic students challenge unjust laws by representing individuals whose rights have been violated through the legislative process. Students learn two areas of substantive law: constitutional law and international human rights law; both are used in their advocacy. Clinic students are engaged in all levels of advocacy from interviewing clients, drafting court pleadings, and engaging in the discovery process to writing briefs, oral advocacy, and trial work.

“Working on an amicus brief as a law student has been a valuable experience not only in enhancing my technical skills as a lawyer, but also in teaching me to advocate within the law for the protection of our constitutional right,” said second-year student Lucy Sprague. “The constitutional right to vote is fundamental to democracy, and it was a privilege advocating that the right be free from age discrimination in the context of restrictive vote by mail policies.”

“It is imperative that young voters have the information and resources they need to vote by mail effectively,” said Charles Imohiosen, Esq., President and CEO of The Andrew Goodman Foundation. “In October 2022, The Andrew Goodman Foundation launched Student Vote Choice, a national campaign to promote student voter accessibility to vote in person or by mail and to ensure that these ballots are counted. Together, AGF and our partner organizations will bring polling places, as well as educational resources about voting by mail, to campuses ahead of the 2023 local and 2024 Presidential Elections.”

REAL WORLD IMPACT

MORE THAN 50 PEOPLE ASSISTED IN FILING FOR EXPUNGEMENT On April 20, the Expungement Law Project (ELP) held its annual Expungement Event at the Kroc Center in Camden where ELP students and volunteer attorneys helped over 50 people from all over New Jersey file expungement petitions. These clients will soon have better opportunities for housing, jobs, loans and education.

ELP partnered with South Jersey Legal Services, Camden County Prosecutor, Camden County Superior Court, and Office of the Public Defender to make the event happen. ELP students who participated in the spring are Sheree Brewer, Jordan Dunbar, Chelsea Fadio, Steven Gallagher, Raina Merl (Class of 2023) and Chakeema Cruickshank, Steven Dittmar and Iain Saltzberg Pollard (Class of 2024). In addition, Sarah Lageson ‘23, Associate Professor in the Rutgers-Newark School of Criminal Justice, helped as an ELP practicum student.

CLINIC ADVOCACY ON EXPUNGEMENT HEARINGS PRODUCES RESULTS For the past three years, ELP has been filing motions across the state to enforce the 60-day statutory timeline for expungement hearings. ELP assisted the Office of the Public Defender (OPD) with filing a motion on behalf of over 70 clients who were waiting for a hearing in the Atlantic County vicinage. The motion was granted and the vicinage has been regularly scheduling hearings within the 60-day window. On the heels of that successful motion and after a significant behind the scenes effort in partnership with ACLU-NJ, OPD, and Volunteer Lawyers for Justice (VLJ), the NJ Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) issued a directive March 2023 to all vicinages that expungement hearings must be scheduled within 60 days. The AOC directive also clarified that certain supporting documents were no longer required after a 2019 change in the law for petitioners seeking expungement of certain drug charges, which ELP had been arguing in motions for the past four years.

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Students & staff making 1200 ham sandwiches for migrants.

Helping Migrants at the Border Went Beyond Legal Assistance Written by Emily Rathburn ‘23 In May 2023, I was fortunate to join a passionate group of students and Immigrant Rights Clinic staff in Tijuana to assist migrants at the border.

We arrived at a particularly momentous time because Title 42 had expired only days before our arrival, causing sweeping policy changes and confusion amongst those trying to navigate the system.

On our very first day in Tijuana, we saw the border wall in person. While I had read and watched sources about border conditions, it was nonetheless jarring to see the wall firsthand. Our next day, we met the Espacio Migrante team and learned more about the important work they do, as well as connected with California-based attorneys visiting the area. We learned about the current state of the border, including reports that people were scamming migrants by selling fake CBP One appointments and that white applicants seemed more likely to be granted appointments through the app.

Each day, we visited different shelters that varied greatly in their size and demographics.

One was a small LGBTQ+ shelter, where I gave

Emily Rathburn ‘23 and Paralegal Sylvia Santos giving a charla to migrants at the border.

a know-your-rights presentation, while others housed over a thousand migrants of diverse backgrounds. We each gave presentations at the different shelters and answered individual questions afterwards. At each shelter, there was righteous frustration and confusion because it was nearly impossible for many to make CBP One appointments without smartphones, reliable internet, or simply luck. After connecting one-on-one with many migrants, several recounted the sacrifices they made just to get to Tijuana, only for more obstacles to be thrown at them. One man described the difficulties he faced because he was kidnapped on his journey from South America and his passport was stolen, so he no longer had it as an identity document to enter the United States. He had been turned away at the U.S. border only a few days prior.

The team at Espacio Migrante noted that this frustration was common and people were often exploited on their journeys. They were dedicated to using the resources they had to assist where possible. Sometimes this was through legal work, but not all immigration support is legal work. One day, we joined the Espacio Migrante team and prepared 1,200 sandwiches to bring to one of the larger shelters. It wasn’t only about delivering the know-your-rights presentation or doing individual consultations, but also making sure

the families there had necessary resources. Part of serving migrant communities is being there for the wide range of needs and not just one’s specialty or preference.

While most migrants spoke Spanish or HaitianCreole, I was able to assist with a consultation in Russian. At the time, the CBP One app was only available in English, Spanish, or HaitianCreole, which made its use even more difficult for those who speak other languages. Those who were not fluent in one of those languages faced even greater challenges and often relied on others to assist them with the process.

Overall, the experience was invaluable, and I am grateful for the opportunity I had to connect with those at the border, as well as with the team at Espacio Migrante. I am happy to have stayed in touch and assisted with some of their Russian language needs even after we left.

I feel our time there was incredibly impactful, especially surrounding the expiration of Title 42. The uncertainty surrounding the change, coupled with scammers preying on migrants, made it all the more important for border communities to have access to reliable information. I am happy we were able to play a role in clarifying the nebulous process for those facing it. This experience is one I will take with me going forward and it further affirmed my drive to do immigration work in my career.

Rutgers Law Immigrant Rights Clinic students and staff with staff from Espacio Migrante.

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Clinic Files Supreme Court Brief in Support of Immigration Journalists The Rutgers Law International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court focusing on protecting journalists who report on immigration reform.

The brief argues that journalists have the right, under the First Amendment, to report freely on immigration issues without fear of being arrested, harassed, or intimidated by the government. IHRC Director and Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law Penny Venetis filed the brief, which included the work of four IHRC students.

“Our team worked really hard on this brief, and I am proud to have advocated for the rights of journalists and the freedom of the press,” said third year student Anna Griffith. “It is work like this that made me want to go to law school.”

The United States of America v. Helaman Hansen case centers on whether the First Amendment permits criminal punishment of speech that merely encourages a noncitizen to remain in the United States, without any requirement of intent to further illegal conduct, when remaining in the United States is itself not a crime.

The brief states that the statute is “unconstitutionally overbroad and can easily be used to silence journalists in violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press.” The government has already admitted to using the law to gather information, impede free movement, and harass and detain journalists reporting on the “migrant caravan” that traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018 and 2019.

Second year student Tehmina Pechefsky said, “Working on the Hansen amicus brief was an exciting venture into the intricacies of federal statutory reach. Professor Venetis’ approach to the subject matter of the brief was a fun and novel learning experience for us. She is a rigorous, engaging, and enthusiastic editor and educator.”

The Clinic’s brief also discusses how First Amendment law is mirrored in cases decided by the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

It shows how “overbroad” statutes that can be easily used to arrest journalists have been invalidated under both U.S. and international law.

IHRC is a pioneer in using international human rights law in courts throughout the United States. Students enrolled in the Clinic challenge and change unjust laws by representing individuals whose rights have been violated, and through the legislative process.

Students learn two areas of substantive law: constitutional law and international human rights law; both are used in their advocacy.

Clinic students are engaged in all levels of advocacy from interviewing clients, drafting court pleadings, and engaging in the discovery process to writing briefs, oral advocacy, and trial work.

“This Clinic has been life-changing, truly. That is not an overstatement because the work that we do truly is life-changing,” said third year student Amera Hamed. “We are impacting real people’s lives and there is nothing better than that.”

Second year student Dave Bialy said, “The International Human Rights Clinic has been an amazing opportunity; now, I know that a project I worked for is being read by Supreme Court Justices and could affect the outcome of their deliberations, something that I never even dreamed of before!”

June 22, 2023 Update: Even though the Supreme Court did not find the statute to be unconstitutionally overbroad, as the International Human Rights Clinic’s brief argued, the majority opinion interpreted the statute in a way that did away with the constitutional deficiencies. Just as the Clinic argued, journalists cannot be arrested merely for reporting on immigration issues. The dissenting opinion, written by Supreme Court Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, criticized the majority for not finding the statute

unconstitutional on its face, as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had done. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Jackson referenced the Clinic’s brief, and the arguments made by the Clinic and other amici.

NEW CLINICAL FACULTY > > > > > > TOMICA BURKE SAUL | Assistant Professor of Law Tomica Burke Saul joins us as an Assistant Professor of Law and now teaches in the Community and Transactional Lawyering Clinic, which provides corporate and transactional legal services to New Jersey non-profit corporations, startup for-profit businesses, and micro-enterprises. Professor Burke Saul’s scholarship explores entrepreneurship policy and economic justice, specifically for historicallyunderrepresented business owners. Her research considers the efficacy of using entrepreneurship as a means of community economic empowerment and self-determination among individuals affected by systemic injustices.

KATHRYN A. SABBETH | Professor of Law Kathryn A. Sabbeth, a renowned expert on housing and civil justice, joins us as a Professor of Law and co-directs the Housing Justice & Tenant Solidarity Clinic. She now teaches Property and other courses on access to justice. Her scholarship focuses on eviction courts and, more broadly, the relationship between courts and capital. Her recent publications include The Gender of Gideon, UCLA Law Review; Eviction Courts, St. Thomas Law Journal; and Racial Capitalism in the Civil Courts, Columbia Law Review. She is currently working on a book, Courts & Capital: How Market Power Shapes Law and Justice in the Civil Legal System, under contract with Cambridge University Press.

GREG BALTZ | Assistant Professor of Law Greg Baltz, who joined us last year as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, is now Assistant Professor of Law and co-directs the Housing Justice & Tenant Solidarity Clinic. In clinic, Professor Baltz teaches law students to strategically employ the law in support of housing justice organizing. His research focuses on the justice gaps in our courts and agencies as well as the regulatory structures that govern housing markets. His work also investigates how the law informs, facilitates, and undermines community organizing strategies.

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Economic Justice Clinic Wins National Record High Fee Award Under Equal Access to Justice Act in SSI Case A federal judge awarded the Rutgers Economic Justice and Public Benefits Clinic the largest single fee award in an individual social security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits case under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), a first in EAJA’s 43- year history.

This historic feat was identified by the National Organization for Social Security Claimant Representatives.

The Clinic was awarded nearly $50,000 for its work on and victory in this single case for a client from Newark. The decision, on the merits from which EAJA was generated, was a rare Third Circuit outright reversal in Nazario v. Comm’r of Soc. producing over $80,000 in back SSI/SSD benefits to the plaintiff and ongoing benefits and health insurance under Medicaid/Medicare. In the fee decision on November 22, 2022, the Court rejected all of the SSA’s defenses against fee liability and all arguments seeking reductions in requested fees in awarding the Clinic the full amount sought in the fee application.

The case was litigated by several teams of thirdyear law students of the Rutgers Economic Justice and Public Benefits Clinic under the supervision of the Clinic’s Director, Professor

REAL WORLD IMPACT BACK ON THEIR FEET Along with its partners in the New Jersey Coalition Against Human Trafficking, the International Human Rights Clinic helped introduce and pass a statute that expanded the vacatur law so that crimes that trafficking victims were forced to commit can be permanently erased.

In January 2022, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed the new bill into law. It allows human trafficking survivors to have nearly any crime vacated if they could prove it was a result of trafficking. Clinic students and faculty then filed a test case after the new law went into effect.

The test case led to a judge vacating and expunging all 19 of the client’s criminal convictions in New Jersey under the new statute. Working in conjunction with the Legal Aid Society in New York City, the Clinic also secured a vacatur/expungement of her convictions in New York. The Clinic is helping lawyers in other states to draft petitions to vacate their client’s convictions. The Clinic’s success in New Jersey is helping to expeditiously move those cases forward.

Jon Dubin. Professor Dubin also argued the appeal on the merits in the Third Circuit after mooting and second chairing by his Clinic students. Clinic students handled the initial administrative hearing, the administrative appeal, the federal district court briefing and litigation, and substantial briefing in the Third Circuit.

Professor Dubin stated, “The Equal Access to Justice Act was designed to provide access to justice and to the federal courts by making lawyers available to persons who cannot afford them and to supply opportunities for non-profits and public minded and community based private counsel to ‘do well while doing good.’

Hopefully, this large award and precedent will provide greater incentives for more lawyers to step in and help address the tremendous “justice gap” for low-income litigants seeking lifesupporting public benefits

and, in many other cases, challenging economic injustice based on unsupported government agency action.”

Micauri Vargas, ’20 (left) worked on the Third Circuit reply/response briefing and oral argument preparation in the case on the merits (now Associate Counsel, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Democracy & Justice Program); and John Rinaldi, ’17 (right) worked on all stages of the District Court Litigation on the merits (now Staff Attorney, Public Benefits Unit, SSI Specialist, Essex-Newark Legal Services). Professor Dubin is in the middle.

Helping a Stigmatized Community Amongst Military Veterans It’s no secret that formerly incarcerated people face huge obstacles in finding a stable job after their release, and the result is a ripple effect that impacts their housing security, physical and mental health, and, ultimately, their ability to successfully integrate back into their communities.

While veterans have significant benefits at their disposal through the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—including housing, loans, educational resources, and health benefits—those with other than honorable discharges from the military are ineligible to receive them.

“Service members with other than honorable discharges are more likely to experience unemployment, housing insecurity, and risk for suicide—and they’re more likely to be incarcerated, which compounds these challenges,” says Traci Overton, director of the Veterans Advocacy Clinic at Rutgers Law School.

“It would be life-changing for these veterans to be able to access VA benefits upon their release from prison.”

In an effort to reach, educate, and help this community, the Veterans Advocacy Clinic hosted a presentation on April 4 in the veterans’ unit of the East Jersey State Prison in Rahway, New Jersey. This special unit was created in 2019 thanks to a grant from the US Department of Justice as the state’s first all-veterans housing unit, designed to provide one centralized location for veterans to receive services and resources focused on rehabilitation and reentry into the community.

Student presenters reviewed the process for and benefits of character of service determination and discharge upgrades and provided the inmates with printed resources on how to start the process on their own. After the presentation, attendees had the opportunity to ask questions about obtaining their military records, gathering personal statements, and getting the process started so they’re able to access benefits when they’re released.

“I enjoy working with inmates because they don’t typically have access to the same type of programming as the rest of us, and their limited access varies depending on which facility they’re in,” says one of the student presenters, Jen Loughran ‘23. “This was an opportunity to provide much-needed help to a stigmatized community.”

For more information about how to upgrade a discharge or character of service determination, visit www.swords-to-plowshares.org/guides/ upgrading-your-discharge.

The Rutgers Law Veterans Advocacy Clinic based in Camden represents New Jersey veterans seeking discharge upgrades after being unjustly separated from the military with “bad paper discharges” (other than honorable discharges) for behaviors attributable to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury, Military Sexual Trauma, or other mental health disorders, and those whose discharges were due to discrimination based on their race, gender identity or sexual orientation. Students also represent veterans in Character of Service Determination matters before Veterans Affairs.

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Clinic Founding Director Retires After 26 Years of Service Professor Robert “Bob” Holmes has retired following 26 years as Founding Director of the Community & Transactional Lawyering Clinic (CTLC). When created in 1997, CTLC (originally named the Community Law Clinic) was the law school’s first clinic focusing on a full range of transactional lawyering, including a special emphasis on Intellectual Property Law. Heightened interest in Intellectual Property Law resulted in the creation of a separate Intellectual Property Law Clinic headed by Professor John Kettle.

Holmes leaves the law school as a Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law, C. Clyde Ferguson Scholar, and Deputy Director of the law school’s overall clinical program in Newark. He joined the law school following employment as a Partner in the New Jersey law firm Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer, Assistant Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, Executive Director of the Newark Watershed Corporation, and Executive Director of the City of Newark’s Housing Development & Rehabilitation Corporation.

Robert Holmes, Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law, addresses more than 100 guests at his retirement gala on July 2, 2023.

Holmes has produced a range of scholarship with a primary emphasis on an analysis of the intent and implementation of the New Jersey Supreme Court landmark Mount Laurel decision and a secondary emphasis on community lawyering and clinic management.

commissioner, law professor, board and commission member, he has defined excellence and created massive change in our city. He has inspired, educated and mentored generations of students and colleagues. He has truly moved Newark forward.”

On July 2, 2023, more than 100 guests attended a retirement gala hosted by Bob’s wife, Lucy.

At the event, representatives presented tributes from Rutgers University President Jonathon Holloway, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, The Newark Municipal Council, Rutgers-Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor, and the New Jersey General Assembly. In addition, tributes were presented in person by Bob’s former students, Dara Govan, Everett Johnson, and Anton Lendor and by the law school’s former Dean, Stuart Deutsch.

President Holloway’s tribute reads in part, “Rutgers Law, Rutgers University, the city of Newark, and the state of New Jersey are all in debt to Bob Holmes. Bob has made all of his communities better for his service.”

Mayor Baraka remarked, “Robert C. Holmes is one of Newark’s great renaissance men.

As a municipal administrator, lawyer, state

Chancellor Cantor said, “Your influence has been felt well beyond the law school. It has become a defining motif in the fabric of our institution and how we engage collaboratively with our community. That makes you and your work an indelible part of what Rutgers-Newark is and what we aspire to be. You have moved the needle on racial equity and equitable growth.”

NEW DEAN continued from page 1 positive student experience. “Law schools have an obligation to their students to ensure we’re maximizing their potential to enjoy academic success while they’re in law school, pass the bar, and get a job in an area that’s exciting to them,” she says. “That’s the minimum we owe them. My work will center around ensuring student success and putting students first.” This includes increasing bar passage, employment, and efforts surrounding diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

Bond also plans to revamp the alumni relations program to ensure that graduates remain connected to the law school after they leave campus, and increase support for faculty scholarship and the Minority Student Program.

This program, Bond notes, is signature for the law school and reflects the strong institutional values of equality and inclusion.

A Renewed Electricity Bond’s arrival at Rutgers Law is something of a homecoming. A Jersey girl through and through, she grew up in Ramsey and has happy memories of her childhood and young

adulthood in the state. (“I grew up in the 80s in New Jersey so I was part of that big hair culture,” she quips. “I went to my first Bruce Springsteen concert at Giants Stadium, and took the train into New York City on the weekends—I thought that was the greatest thing on earth.”) The daughter of a public school teacher and a state college professor, Bond’s fondness for the state will serve her well as she works to strengthen the connections between the law school’s two campuses in Camden and Newark, and execute her vision of Rutgers Law as an institution that provides an outstanding legal education to a diverse range of students at an affordable price—all while acting as a vibrant hub for social change.

“My goal is to build on this incredible history of the People’s Electric Law School, capturing the message of social change and community engagement, and uniting people around this core mission,” Bond says. “Sometimes, it takes someone with a renewed appreciation for those values to remind people how special that is—to be at an institution that embraces the change we want to see in the world.”

REAL WORLD IMPACT FIRST CHILD ADVOCACY CLINIC POST-GRADUATE FELLOW The Child Advocacy Clinic (CAC) welcomed its first postgraduate fellow, Jared Flanery, in August 2023. Jared is a graduate of Cornell Law School and has a master’s degree in International and World History from Columbia University and the London School of Economics. This two-year fellowship was made possible by new state funding for the representation of unaccompanied minors that began in 2021. Eager to create a pipeline of highly qualified bilingual attorneys and to entice law students to become immigration attorneys for children, the State and Kids In Need of Defense (KIND), the organization charged with managing the funds, asked the CAC to initiate this fellowship. Jared will spend the first year representing clients who have been designated as unaccompanied minors. He also will shadow CAC Director and Professor Randi Mandelbaum to learn as much as he can about clinical teaching and supervision. In the second year, he will continue to represent child clients, but will also supervise law students, expanding the capacity of the CAC.

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REAL WORLD IMPACT

AMICUS CURIAE FILED IN NJ SUPREME COURT PARENTAL RIGHTS CASE The Child Advocacy Clinic (CAC) was granted amicus curiae status on a New Jersey Supreme Court case (New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency v. D.C.A. and J.J.C.B.; Docket No. 087604). The issue in the case is whether a trial court in a termination of parental rights hearing may consider any evidence about the relationship the child has developed with their foster parents. In June 2023, Professor Randi Mandelbaum and the CAC’s two fellows, Daniel Adamek and Camila Fernandez (pictured below), joined with Advocates for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ), and authored an amicus brief wherein they argued that parental rights should be terminated only in extreme and rare circumstances, but where such an action is brought, the needs of the child must be considered, including the relationship that the child may have developed with their foster parents during their tenure in foster care. Such evidence should never be dispositive or outcome-determinative, but should not be precluded. In fact, research by the CAC student fellows found that barring such evidence would make New Jersey the only state in the country with this limitation.

Oral argument was held on September 12, 2023. Professor Mandelbaum represented the CAC and ACNJ, and most of the students from the CAC (pictured above) were there to hear the arguments.

Adjunct Prof. Stanley Tso ‘06, Lana Lee ‘23, and IP Law Clinic Director John Kettle

New Rutgers Law Graduate Receives First Intellectual Property Clinic Award Lana Ivory Lee ‘23 was honored as the inaugural recipient of the Intellectual Property Law Clinic Award, designed to celebrate a student who has demonstrated exceptional proficiency in the clinical practice of intellectual property law. She was awarded on August 1, 2023.

The Fort Lee, New Jersey native worked in the Intellectual Property Law Clinic during the fall 2022 and spring 2023 semesters and, notably, worked to re-establish the federal trademark registration for the American Archtop brand of guitars with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

“Working at the Intellectual Property Law Clinic has been a transformative experience, both professionally and personally,” Lee says.

“I am truly humbled to receive this award and deeply grateful for this remarkable honor.”

Directed by Professor of Law John Kettle, the clinic offers intellectual property and

FIND OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING AT

entertainment law advice and assistance to non-profit entities, authors, artists, inventors, start-ups, and others, covering topics from copyrights and trademarks to patents and licenses.

“Ms. Lee demonstrated a remarkable level of knowledge and proficiency in serving the various needs of the clients assigned to her,” Kettle says. “She consistently went above and beyond in also assisting her clinical colleagues, and developed and shared systems and methods of conducting the work of the clinic in a more efficient and effective manner, which will be used in the clinic going forward.”

This award is a prestigious first step for Lee, who hopes to pursue a career in intellectual property law. “I will forever cherish this recognition,” she says, “and this award will serve as a reminder to continue striving for excellence.”

@RUTGERSLAWSCHOOL @RUTGERSLAW @RUTGERSLAWSCHOOL @RUTGERS.LAW @RUTGERS-LAW-SCHOOL @RUTGERS.LAW

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Legal Action Launched Over Untimely Expungements in New Jersey The New Jersey Office of the Public Defender (OPD) announced today that it filed a class action lawsuit against the New Jersey State Police (NJSP) to require it to timely process expungement orders. The suit is a result of the work of Rutgers Law School’s Expungement Law Project (ELP) in Camden, in partnership with OPD, ACLU-NJ, Volunteer Lawyers for Justice (VLJ), and Legal Services of New Jersey. Rutgers Law Professor and ELP Director Meredith Schalick convened this group of stakeholders over the past year to discuss concerns about the criminal expungement process in New Jersey. Sandra Simkins, Rutgers Law professor, and Dr. Sarah Lageson, Rutgers School of Criminal Justice associate professor in Newark, also lent their expertise to the group.

In trying to address the expungement process delays caused by NJSP, the group made an Open Public Records Request, spoke with and emailed leaders in NJSP, NJ Office of the Attorney General and NJ Administrative Office of the Courts, and even made a referral to the NJ Office of the State Comptroller, led

by Rutgers Law alumnus Kevin Walsh ’99.

However, it became increasingly clear to the group that litigation was likely to be the only way to force a spotlight on the unreasonable delays and get relief for nearly 50,000 people seeking a criminal expungement.

New Jersey has been on the forefront of expanding opportunities for people to expunge their criminal records, and the courts have ordered the records of thousands of New Jerseyans expunged. Once an expungement is granted, the NJSP is charged with removing such offenses from publicly available records.

But the State Police’s extreme delays in processing expungement orders and sealing individuals’ criminal records is frustrating the law’s goals of allowing reformed and rehabilitated New Jerseyans to be freed from the collateral consequences of their past lives.

In 2019, the State Police received access to $15 million in taxpayer money to support swift processing of expungement orders.

However, the agency has a significant backlog of unprocessed orders, recently estimated to consist of almost 50,000 cases. Individuals have waited many months, even over a year, for the State Police to process their expungement orders. This means that potential employers and other organizations that run background checks can learn about a person’s criminal history in contravention of the court orders expunging those records. This impacts their ability to obtain employment, housing, licenses, and other opportunities.

Through ELP, low-income South Jersey residents can get help to navigate New Jersey’s cumbersome expungement process and clear their records, providing an opportunity for them to restart their lives as equal citizens in society. Since ELP began in spring 2018, law students in Camden have assisted well over 200 people looking to expunge their records.

Professor Schalick said, “During that time, we have watched the New Jersey State Police go from taking about four months to comply with an order and delete the necessary data, to now taking almost two years to comply with orders.” She added, “New Jersey can do better for people seeking a second chance, and the New Jersey State Police should be held accountable for failing to do their job.”

According to the lawsuit, a court expunged Plaintiff A.A.’s offenses in December of 2021.

He has been waiting since then for them to be removed from his record. During the almost two-year delay, he has been turned away from multiple community volunteer positions to coach his son’s youth sports teams after the NJSP revealed his expunged criminal history in response to background checks.

Plaintiff C.C., whose expungement order was issued in September 2022, had her expunged criminal history disclosed in September 2023 when she applied for a massage therapy license. A six-month delay in processing B.B.’s expungement order cost him a job at a casino.

The other Plaintiffs named in the Complaint—

D.D., E.E., and F.F.—have experienced similar delays that have prevented them from obtaining jobs and licenses.

The Plaintiffs, and other class members, have worked hard to reform themselves, overcoming poverty, addiction, and other past trauma, but find themselves unable to move forward with their lives due to the State Police’s failure to process their expungement orders in a timely manner.

The delay also has devastating consequences for those waiting for expungement under Continued on page 16

CLINICAL FACULT Y PUBLICATIONS 2023–2024 GREG BALTZ nW hy Should Tenant Unions Look to Labor Law? The Law and Political Economy Project, Sept. 6, 2023 https://lpeproject.org/ blog/why-should-tenant-unions-look-tolabor-law/

RANDI MANDELBAUM nH eeding the Voices of Migrant Youth: The Need for Action, 121 Michigan Law Review 965 (2023) (book review)

LAURA COHEN nT he Anti-Racist Imperative of Infancy, 19 Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy (forthcoming 2024)

KATHRYN SABBETH nT he Gender of Gideon, 69 UCLA L. Rev. 1130 (Kathryn A. Sabbeth & Jessica K. Steinberg) (2023)

nB arriers to Innocence: Identifying,

Investigating, and Undoing Wrongful Convictions, 75 Rutgers L. Rev. (forthcoming 2023) JON DUBIN n The Color of Social Security: Race, Equal Protection and the Crown Jewel of the American Welfare State, 35 S. L. & Pol’y Rev. (forthcoming 2024) n Social Security Disability Law and

Procedure in Federal Court (2023 edition; co-authored with Carolyn A. Kubitschek, Thomson Reuters Publishing Co.) n2 023 Supplement/Update for Social Security

Law, Policy & Practice: Cases and Materials (co-authored with Frank S. Bloch, American Casebook Series, West Academic Publishing Co.) (2023) nT eacher’s Manual for Social Security Law,

Policy and Practice: Cases and Materials (Co-authored with Frank S. Bloch, West Academic Publishing Co.) (first updated edition, 2023) JOANNE GOTTESMAN n Children, Culpability, and Conduct-Based Inadmissibility in Immigration Law, 98 Tul. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2023)

nR elease to Sponsor Approved, Now What?, 91

Fordham Law Review Online 83 (2023)

CARYN SCHREIBER nR ent Deposit Requirements: A Civil Court Poll Tax, 48 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change (forthcoming 2024) SANDRA SIMKINS nP ublic Interest Burnout: Seven Factors that Increase the Risk, DePaul College of Law Journal for Social Justice, Vol. 17, Fall 2023 JENNIFER ROSEN VALVERDE nO n Legal Guardianship: An Exploratory Assessment of Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Resident Physicians, Medical Teacher.

Doi: 10.1080/0142159X. 2023.2256965.

[Accepted for publication] (with BarajasOchoa A, Mackie TI, and Fofana B) nA Panoramic IDEA: Cabining the Snapshot

Rule in Special Education Disputes, 55 Ariz.

St. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2023) PENNY VENETIS nS ex Crimes and Process Rape Kits Violate U.S. and International Law, 108 Cornell Law Review (forthcoming 2024)

14 CLINIC NEWS

State Legislature Renews Funding for NJ Housing Justice Project In 2020, the Legislature passed NJSA 22A:2-51a, funding law school programs to prepare more law students to help with the housing crisis.

The legislation acknowledged that the lack of affordable housing, long an issue in New Jersey, was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and disproportionately impacts Black and Latinx residents of New Jersey. The Legislature renewed these critical appropriations in 2022 and 2023. Thanks to ongoing support from the Legislature, the New Jersey Housing Justice Project continues helping improve conditions for low- and middle-income tenants, promote housing stability in the state, and build a new generation of advocates.

In the last academic year, 84 students participated in the law schools' housing justice clinics. Seventeen of those students were able to return for a second semester as advanced students. The clinic students provided more than 25,000 hours of clinic service.

As part of the project, law students and recent graduates have:

• defended parents in eviction cases and helped them obtain repairs to make their homes safer for their children.

• assisted tenant organizations and challenged illegal rent hikes.

• helped seniors find new apartments with the supportive services they need to continue to call New Jersey home.

• presented their housing justice work to NJ Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin.

New Jersey Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (center) discussed the Housing Justice Project with law students from Rutgers Law and Seton Hall Law schools in April 2023.

The state’s investment in the New Jersey Housing Justice Project is an effective use of resources. Housing instability tears communities apart, and lawyers make a difference. Every dollar invested in legal services for tenants saves approximately $12 in social, educational, health, carceral and other costs.

New Jersey is taking steps to save taxpayer dollars while supporting individuals who need help.

In partnership with Seton Hall Law School, Rutgers has established many programs to increase housing stability: • Housing Justice Corps • Increased enrollment in housing clinics • Increased pro bono work • Policy work

International Human Rights Clinic Secures Asylum for Celebrated Mexican Journalist Emilio Gutierrez is an award-winning Mexican journalist, devoted father, University of Michigan Knight-Wallace Fellowship recipient, and National Press Club honoree. Thanks to the work of Rutgers Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), he is also a newly-minted US asylee, protected from ever being deported back to Mexico, where he was intimidated with beatings, home raids, and death threats as a result of his reporting on government and police corruption.

Gutierrez first became an IHRC client in 2018, when he was unlawfully jailed after a speech he made criticizing US immigration policy. IHRC filed a habeas corpus petition on Gutierrez’s behalf based on the First Amendment and international law, and secured his release.

“It was very clear that Emilio was being targeted for his criticism of the broken US immigration system,” says IHRC Clinic Director Penny Venetis. “We were able to convince a federal judge in Texas that his detention and imminent deportation had nothing to do with the merits of his asylum case, and everything to do with his critique of the US government.”

The judge’s decision to release Gutierrez from detention in 2018 was a significant win for free speech and asylum seekers, drawing the attention of international journalism organizations and news outlets alike. Still, the matter of his asylum needed to be resolved.

“The IHRC began working on Emilio’s appeal as soon as he was released from jail in 2018 because we strongly suspected, based on Trump administration emails we had obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, that he would be denied asylum,” Venetis explains.

“Unfortunately, we were right.”

In their appellate brief, Venetis and her team at the IHRC argued that Gutierrez was entitled to political asylum as a member of a recognizable group singled out for persecution: journalists. Indeed, the Committee to Protect Journalists says that more than 150 reporters have been killed in Mexico since 1992 by cartels and corrupt government officials alike, making Emilio Gutierrez-Soto (National Press Club photo by Lynette Clemetson) it the most dangerous place for journalists to In the meantime, this decision is life-changing work outside of an active war zone. for one man and his son, who first crossed the This type of argument, typically leveraged for asylum-seekers who face persecution on account of race, religion, or nationality, opens the door for other journalists seeking asylum who don’t have a clinical program or the National Press Club behind them.

Students in the International Human Rights Clinic worked with Prof. Venetis on the brief (2018).

“Lawyers can use the decision issued in Emilio’s case to protect other journalists who are persecuted abroad and seek asylum in the US,” says Venetis.

border into the US in 2008.

“It has been a long journey, and these past 15 years have been difficult,” Gutierrez said in a statement. “I hope that my case will shine a light on the need to protect those journalists in Mexico and around the world who are working and risking their lives to tell the truth.”

FALL 2023 15

Record-Breaking Donation Will Establish New Rutgers Law Clinic The Stephanie and Harold Krieger Charitable Trust has gifted $6.5 million to Rutgers Law School, the second largest gift in the law school’s history. Of the donation, $5.5 million will be used to establish the new Ruth Bader Ginsburg Women’s Rights and Gender Justice Clinic.

Rutgers Law School Dean Johanna Bond said, “This gift will re-establish and expand the former Women’s Rights Litigation Clinic which the Justice founded here in the early 1970s and which accomplished groundbreaking law reform until it ceased operation in the early 2000s.”

The clinic’s mission will be to advance gender equity through direct representation, impact litigation, and legislative work; educate a new generation of students to continue the fight for gender equity; and expand the reach of Rutgers’ nationally ranked clinical programs with a distinct women’s and gender rights clinic.

The gift also creates The Stephanie and Harold Krieger Memorial Endowed Scholarship with a $1 million endowment. This will provide major scholarships for three law students in Newark.

Preference will be given to first-generation college students in good academic standing with demonstrated financial need.

Harold Kreiger graduated from New Jersey Law School, the predecessor of Rutgers Law, in 1929. He had an active practice that spanned labor law, workers compensation, criminal law, and municipal law. During his lengthy career of private and public practice in Jersey City, he served as municipal judge, assistant corporation counsel, counsel to the Redevelopment Agency and the Parking Authority, and Hudson County counsel. In later years, he served as commissioner of the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hall, built in 1929, was named in her honor in 2020. The neoclassical skyscraper was home to the law school from 1975 to 1999 and now features a residential facility for students and event space.

Kreiger’s will provided that upon the passing of his wife, Stephanie, a charitable trust would be created and directed by the named trustee, Brett S. Harwood, a longtime family friend. Before Stephanie’s passing, Harwood received her full endorsement of the new clinic’s funding and scholarship fund.

A revered champion of civil rights, Justice Ginsburg served on the Supreme Court from 1993 until her death in 2020. During her time on the court, she issued many opinions that advanced equal rights for women and credited her time at Rutgers Law as inspiration for her work. She taught at Rutgers Law School in Newark from 1963 to 1972, becoming one of only two women law professors at Rutgers and one of just a handful in the nation. She led a seminar on women and the law and served as the founding faculty adviser for The Women’s Rights Law Reporter (WRLR). The journal is now the oldest legal periodical in the U.S. focusing exclusively on the field of women’s rights law.

Elizabeth Langer ‘73, who co-founded WRLR and served as its first editor-in chief, gave a brief history of the journal’s origins at the celebration.

“The fight goes on. The legacy goes on,” Harwood stated. “We’re creating the funds to create a long lasting legacy to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and it pleases me very, very much to be able to facilitate this.”

Dean Bond announced the gift at a formal unveiling of the U.S. Postal Service’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg stamp. The celebration took place on October 16 at Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hall on Rutgers-Newark’s campus. Nearly 200 people attended the unveiling, including students from Barringer, Central, and University high schools in Newark. Justice Ginsburg’s granddaughter Clara Spera, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, gave remarks at the celebration.

“This stamp is an especially meaningful tribute to my grandmother for many reasons,” Spera said. “She joins the ranks of other justices she revered, like Thurgood Marshall, and other path-marking civil rights advocates like Ella Baker and women’s rights pioneers like Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.”

The event was co-sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service, the Ebony Society of Philatelic Events and Reflections, which commemorates stamps related to the African Diaspora, and the American Association of University Women’s New Jersey Chapter. Rutgers-Newark was also a sponsor.

Rutgers-Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor said, “Standing here, in a building named for our beloved Justice Ginsburg, on a campus where she herself found inspiration, I find inspiration, too; to keep fighting for justice with our faculty, our staff, our students who are incredibly inspiring in their own right.”

“[Ginsburg] was our teacher, our role model, and our anchor during a time when we needed support,” Langer said. “She gave us strength to pursue a mission: making the world a better place by serving those who have been marginalized.”

Langer mentioned that female enrollment was at 20% when she entered Rutgers Law School in 1970, which was unusually high for a U.S. law school. Fifty-three years later, Rutgers Law has the highest enrollment of women in the law school’s history at 59%.

View the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stamp Reveal Video

>>>

Top: Rutgers Law School, Rutgers-Newark, and U.S. Postal Service, leaders and other dignitaries join Justice Ginsburg’s daughter, Clara Spera (second from left), for the unveiling of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg stamp inside RBG Hall at Rutgers-Newark.

Bottom left: Ruth Bader Ginsburg inside 15 Washington Street, which was renamed in her honor in 2020.

Bottom right: Ruth Bader Ginsburg served on the faculty at Rutgers Law School in Newark from 1963 to 1972.

REAL WORLD IMPACT CLINIC ASKS NJ SUPREME COURT TO MODIFY CRIMINAL PLEA FORMS The Expungement Law Project has asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to modify criminal plea forms to include information about whether charges in the plea are eligible for expungement. Many individuals reported to ELP students that they were unaware they were pleading to a charge that was not eligible for expungement under New Jersey law, such as robbery. The Court is currently considering this change and would issue updated plea forms in the coming months if approved.

16 CLINIC NEWS

CLINICnews

Published by the Rutgers Law School Live-Client Clinical Program

RUTGERS LAW SCHOOL–Newark Clinic S.I. Newhouse Center for Law and Justice 123 Washington Street, 4th Floor, Newark, NJ 07102 | (973) 353-3000 | law.newark.rutgers.edu/clinics

NEWARK CLINIC FACULTY AND STAFF

Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic

Associate Dean for Clinical Education

Elana Wilf, Staff Attorney

Anjum Gupta

Deputy Director of Clinical Programs Randi Mandelbaum

Child Advocacy Clinic

Immigrant Rights Clinic Anjum Gupta, Director

Laura Cohen, Director

Leena Khandwala, Managing Attorney, DDDI Pina Cirillo, Supervising Attorney, DDDI

Economic Justice and Public Benefits Clinic Jon Dubin, Director

Irma Calderon, Detention Fellow, DDDI

Education and Health Law Clinic

Shayna Scott, Detention Fellow, DDDI

Randi Mandelbaum, Director

Esther Canty-Barnes, Director

Sylvia Santos, Paralegal, DDDI

Ashley Cruz, Staff Attorney, DCF/ Immigration Project

Jennifer Rosen Valverde

Intellectual Property Clinic

Cosette Douglas, Senior Staff Attorney, DCF/Immigration Project

Douglas Eakeley, Director

Jared Flannery, Post-Graduate Attorney Fellow Ariela Herzog, Supervising Attorney, DCF/Immigration Project Cristi Privado, Immigration Paralegal, DCF/Immigration Project

Community and Transactional Lawyering Clinic

Charles I. Auffant, Co-Director Tomica Burke Saul, Co-Director

Constitutional Rights Clinic Ronald K. Chen, Acting Director

Entrepreneurship Clinic

John R. Kettle III, Director

Theodore Weitz

International Human Rights Clinic Penny Venetis, Director

Federal Tax Law Clinic Sandy Freund, Director

Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project

Housing Justice and Tenants’ Solidarity Clinic

Jason Hernandez, Managing Attorney

Greg Baltz, Co-Director

Kathryn Sabbeth, Co-Director

Assistant Director for Clinical Administration

Victor Monterrosa, Jr., Managing Director

Jenise Ly

Ellery Ireland, Practitioner-inResidence

Administrative Staff

Alaina Thomas, Practitioner-inResidence

Diane Martinez

Mary Ann Moore

Sophia Awari, NJ Housing Justice Project Fellow

TENANTS continued from page 3 She said, “I want my family to be able to live together. My son has had to stay at the hospital for years. I’ve asked the landlord to get rid of the mold. I have offered to move to another floor. They won’t do anything. They just want us gone.”

The elevators in this eleven-story building constantly break. In July 2022, reporters visited the building after the only working elevator in the South wing had been out of service for over a month. Senior and disabled tenants with units in the South wing of the building had to use the only operable elevator at the other side of the property, then walk across the roof and down several flights of steps just to access their units. Tenants like Denise Wright, who is a senior and uses a cane, wound up essentially homebound during the two months it took to repair the elevator.

Professor Greg Baltz, co-director of the Housing Justice & Tenant Solidarity Clinic, said, “These East Orange families and seniors are fighting hard to defend their homes. The City of East Orange has done a tremendous job documenting the code violations at 75 Prospect and we look forward to their support in establishing the existence of these conditions before the court. As a government sponsored enterprise with a substantial financial stake in 75 Prospect, we also hope that the Federal National Mortgage Association (“Fannie Mae”) will exercise their influence in the receivership lawsuit to ensure the prompt appointment of a responsible manager to make repairs.”

RUTGERS LAW SCHOOL–Camden Clinic 217 North Fifth Street, Camden, NJ 08102 | (856) 225-6375 | camlaw.rutgers.edu/clinics

CAMDEN CLINIC FACULTY AND STAFF Director of Clinical Programs Joanne Gottesman

Child and Family Advocacy Clinic Meredith L. Schalick, Director

Expungement Clinic

Sandra Simkins, Co-Director

Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project

Housing Advocacy Clinic

Mary Hewey, Program Coordinator

Meredith Schalick, Co-Director

Ashley Maddison, Managing Attorney, Eviction Prevention Project Taylor De La Pena, Program Coordinator

Ruth Anne Robbins

Immigrant Justice Clinic

Entrepreneurship Clinic Arthur Laby, Director Tara Pellicori

Veterans Advocacy Clinic Traci Overton, Director

Caryn Schreiber, Director

Domestic Violence Clinic Victoria Chase, Director

Jason Hernandez, Staff Attorney

Assistant Director for Clinical Administration Angelica Latorre Aguirre

Administrative Staff

Joanne Gottesman, Director

Elizabeth Yaeger, Senior Staff Attorney, DCF/Immigration Project

Lidia Catoe

Innocence Project

Nyssa Taylor, Managing Attorney (Camden & Newark)

UNTIMELY EXPUNGEMENTS continued from page 13 New Jersey’s vacatur law, which allows victims of human trafficking to move to vacate and expunge any criminal charges if they can show that, at the time of the offense, it was a result of their trafficked status.

“To add insult to injury, there is no way to even know when an expungement order is complied with since the NJ State Police no longer issues confirmation letters, and the Administrative Office of the Courts removed the notification feature in e-courts,” said Karen Robinson, managing attorney of Volunteer Lawyers for Justice.

PodcastPops The law impacts every sector of society and every aspect of our lives. At a time when many ask “Why law?,” we ask “What more can law do?” Produced by Rutgers Law School, “The Power of Attorney” is an inside look at the power of a legal education and what it means to be a lawyer.

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