City University of New York School of Law

CUNY School of Law is a law school in New York City, founded in 1983.

In 1981, CUNY hired Charles Halpern to be its founding Dean. This law school was established as a public interest law school. The curriculum integrates clinical teaching methods with traditional areas of legal study.^[1][2] In Spring of 1982, Dean Halpern hired Howard Lesnick as a Distinguished Professor of Law. Professor Lesnick believed that CUNY law students needed to understand that the law only has significance in relation to the underlying human problems that it addresses.^[3] The slogan of the law school is: “Law in the Service of Human Needs.”

Twenty-five years later, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching praised CUNY for being one of the best law schools in the country in preparing students for practice through instruction in legal doctrine, critical theory, lawyering skills, and professional ethics.^[4]

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg praises CUNY Law as "an institution of incomparable value." She has noted the school's leadership for "innovations and tireless advancement of public interest law."

Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Professor at Harvard Law School, also praises CUNY Law: "With all due respect to my legal institution and others, in my view CUNY Law School is the premier legal institution in the country and the world for training lawyers who are committed and dedicated to the public interest."

PreLaw Magazine ranked CUNY Law the #1 Public Interest Law School in the Nation.^[5] Yale Law School came in second place.^[5]

The school has also been recognized by National Jurist/PreLaw Magazine as one of the top 10 public interest law schools. ^[6] and by the Princeton Review^[7] for having the best professors, one of the most diverse law faculties in the nation, the most welcoming campus in the nation for older students, and the most liberal student body. According to the National Association for Law Placement Directory, CUNY Law sends a higher share of its students into public interest and public service law practice than any other law school in the nation.

Among CUNY Law's 2009 entering class, 37 percent are students of color. Tenured or tenure-track faculty are 37 percent of color.^[8]

CUNY School of Law in 2008 established the Center for Diversity in the Legal Profession. The main purpose of the Center is to be a clearinghouse for data on the participation of people of color in the law, as well as to conduct original research.

CUNY Law established the Center on Latino and Latina Rights and Equality (CLORE), which focuses on issues impacting the Latino community in the United States, with the goal of developing progressive strategies for legal reform. The Center seeks to educate lawyers, law students, scholars and the general public on the status of Latinos and Latinas, as well as to advocate for expanded civil rights in the areas that affect the growing Latino population.

CUNY Law's Pipeline to Justice program, directed by Associate Dean for Special Projects, Mary Lu Bilek [1] offers a second chance at admission to CUNY Law to excellent, public interest-focused students whose LSAT scores seem incompatible with their achievements. In its first year, the Pipeline to Justice program accounted for a 20 percent increase in students of color among the incoming class.

CUNY Law will move to 2 Court Square in Long Island City in the fall of 2012.^[9] CUNY has purchased a six-floor condominium interest in the 14-story environmentally green building. Citigroup will retain ownership of the remainder of the building. The move will give the school nearly 70,000 additional square feet of space and enable it to develop and offer a new, part-time program. The building is within walking distance of seven subway lines (two within one stop of Manhattan), the Long Island Railroad, and seven bus lines. It is across the street from the Citibank Tower and near the Long Island City Courthouse.

The building at 2 Court Square is LEED Gold certified, which means that its construction had a reduced environmental impact and its design increases occupants' health and well-being.

Curriculum and clinical programs

The Law School curriculum combines traditional substantive law courses (like contracts, torts, civil procedure and criminal law) with lawyering skills throughout the three years of legal education. The first year curriculum consists of seven required substantive courses, Legal Research, and a four-credit Lawyering Seminar in each semester where students work on legal writing and other lawyering skills through simulations and other role-playing devices. CUNY Law pioneered the model of integrating a lawyering curriculum with traditional doctrinal study. Each CUNY third-year student is required to participate in a clinic or concentration for one or two semesters (12 to 16 credits).

Under the umbrella of Main Street Legal Services, Inc., the seven clinics provide direct service, in-house, supervised live-client representation. The two concentrations are highly supervised external placements.

• Community & Economic Development
• Criminal Defense
• Economic Justice Project
• Elder Law
• Equality
• Health Law
• Immigrant and Refugee Rights
• International Women's Human Rights
• Mediation

Justice initiatives / special programs

In addition to numerous pro bono opportunities available through student organizations and the Career Planning Office, the Law School supports a number of justice initiatives that engage students, graduates and faculty in serving immigrants, citizen and non-citizen workers and assisting and empowering historically underserved communities, through the Community Legal Resource Network (CLRN), the Community Micro-Enterprise Initiative (CMEI), the CUNY Law Immigrant Initiatives (CLII), the Worker Employment Labor Program (WELP), and the Workfare Advocacy Project. The Contemplative Lawyering Program offers yoga and meditation. The Haywood Burns Chair in Civil Rights brings prominent visiting civil rights figures to the Law School in memory of its second dean, a national civil rights scholar and activist.

• Community Legal Resource Network (CLRN) Started in 1998, is a collaborative that supports CUNY Law School students as they work to set up and run solo or small-group practices devoted to serving pressing needs of the poor and disadvantaged in communities that are underserved by lawyers.
• Center on Latino and Latina Rights and Equality (CLORE) Focuses on issues impacting the Latino community in the United States, with the goal of developing progressive strategies for legal reform. The Center seeks to educate lawyers, law students, scholars and the general public on the status of Latinos and Latinas, as well as to advocate for expanded civil rights in the areas that affect the growing Latino population.
• Center for Diversity in the Legal Profession CUNY School of Law in 2008 established the Center for Diversity in the Legal Profession. The main purpose of the Center is to be a clearinghouse for data on the participation of people of color in the law, as well as to conduct original research.
• CUNY Law Immigrant Initiatives (CLII) Established in 1997, affords law students a wide variety of opportunities to broaden their views on the role of a lawyer as well as their experience with immigrant issues.
• Economic Justice Project (EJP) Launched in 1997 in response to regressive welfare policies adopted by the City of New York.
• The Community Micro-Enterprise Initiative (CMEI) Developing lawyers who can provide high-quality affordable legal services and education to small businesses in underserved communities and the creation of models that permit such community-based lawyers to survive and thrive.
• Worker Employment Labor Program (WELP) WELP seeks to respond to train and empower people who want to be engaged with workers-unionized and non-unionized, public sector, and within the global economy.

Publications

• New York City Law Review A student-run publication devoted to producing public interest scholarship, engaging with the public interest bar, and fostering student excellence in writing, legal analysis, and research. It is published twice-yearly. Recent issues include a Symposium issue on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a special issue devoted to student scholarship, a special volume on Elder Law featuring winning articles from the ABA Law and Aging Student Competition, and a forthcoming Symposium issue on the work of Ruthann Robson. Additionally, forthcoming issues include a Public Practice Interest section featuring shorter articles focusing on issues facing progressive attorneys.
• CUNY Law Alumni Magazine

Administration

Current Dean Michelle J. Anderson, Dean of the Law School and Professor (appointed in 2006), is a Yale Law School graduate. Her previous position was as a member of the faculty of Villanova University School of Law from 1998 to 2006, where she taught criminal law, criminal procedure, children and the law, and feminist legal theory. Dean Anderson is an honors graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she earned a B.A. degree in Community Studies in 1989 and the Chancellor's Award for outstanding academic achievement. Her article "Understanding Rape Shield Laws" was the basis for a proposal to reform the Wyoming rape shield law. The bill passed the House but did not pass the Wyoming Senate. Dean Anderson is a member of the Board of Directors and Policy Chair for the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence.

Haywood Burns Chair in Civil Rights Haywood Burns, the Law School's second Dean, was an activist, attorney, and civil rights advocate who urged people to work to help underserved communities. Burns' civil rights career began at age 15, when he helped integrate the swimming pool in Peekskill, New York. As a law student at Yale, he participated in the 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi. He became Assistant Counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and later served as General Counsel to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign. A founder of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, he was the first African-American dean of a New York law school, leading the CUNY School of Law to full American Bar Association accreditation. After Burns died in an automobile accident in South Africa in 1996, the Law School established a Chair in Civil Rights in his memory. Funded by an endowment and a contribution from the New York State Legislature, the Chair is a visiting position that has enabled a succession of lawyers, scholars, and activists to bring their experiences, wisdom, and perspectives to the classrooms of CUNY Law.

Past Deans

• Charles Halpern, founder of the D.C.-based Center for Law and Social Policy, a Georgetown law professor, and the acknowledged "father of public interest law" was the first Dean of CUNY Law.
• Haywood Burns, a famous civil rights attorney, was the school's second and most-notable Dean. Haywood Burns' civil rights career began at age 15, when he helped integrate the swimming pool in Peekskill, New York. As a law student at Yale, he participated in the 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi. He was Assistant Counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and later served as General Counsel to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign. A founder of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, he was the first African American Dean of a New York law school, leading the CUNY School of Law to full ABA accreditation.
• Kristin Booth Glen, CUNY Law's previous Dean, stepped down after being elected to the Manhattan Surrogate's Court and was replaced by interim Dean Mary Lu Bilek.^[10] Dean Bilek, a graduate of Harvard Law School has since stepped down from her position, giving way to Michelle Anderson, but has remained at the University as a professor and as the Associate Dean of Special Projects.^[11] The National Association of Public Interest Law (NAPIL) named Kristin Booth Glen, Dean of the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, as "1998 Law School Dean of the Year."

Notable faculty achievements

• In 2006, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo appointed CUNY School of Law Prof. Jenny Rivera as Special Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights.
• Prof. Julie Goldscheid is a Commissioner of the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence and serves on the Advisory Board of NYLAG's Domestic Violence Appellate Representation Project. Goldscheid is the former Legal Director at Legal Momentum. See Ms Goldschied's CV.
• Prof. Caitlin Borgmann presented her paper The Meaning of 'Life': Abortion and Fetal Personhood at the International Society for Family Law North American Regional Conference held in 2006. She also serves on Barack Obama's Women's Policy Committee.
• Prof. Ruthann Robson was named Distinguished Professor by the CUNY Board of Trustees in 2007. Prof. Robson was also the keynote speaker at Standard Margin: Contemporary Issues in Canadian Law & Sexuality, a conference held at the University of British Columbia in 2006.
• Prof. Andrea McArdle presented a session on the design and teaching of her judicial writing course at the 2007 Biennial Conference of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) held in Denver on June 14–16. The conference theme was "Best Practices in Teaching, Management, and Scholarship."
• Prof. Ruthann Robson received a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship.
• In 2007, Prof. Beryl Blaustone joined a delegation of judges and dignitaries working with Yale Law School in Beijing, Peoples Republic of China, as a Mediation Expert assisting in the instruction of how to include Legal Mediation into Civil Small Claims Court Administration.
• Prof. Natalie Gomez-Velez once served on the New York State Board of Regents, which sets education policy, after being appointed to fill a vacancy for one year. She also was appointed by Chief Judge Judith Kaye to serve on the Judicial Screening Committee. Also, Prof. Gomes-Velez has been appointed by Chief Judge Kaye to serve as a member of the Independent Judicial Election Qualification Commission for the Twelfth Judicial District (the Bronx).
• Prof. Rebecca Bratspies participated in The "New" New Haven School: International Law-Past, Present & Future, a conference at Yale Law School and presented her article, Crafting a Green Landing for Spaceship Earth: Some Navigational Advice from the New Haven School She was also the co-organizer of Free Trade or Fair? The Softwood Lumber Dispute and Beyond, the 5th Annual International Law Symposium in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
• Prof. Penelope Andrews' article, Learning to Love After Learning to Harm: Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Gender Equality and Cultural Values, was recently published in 15 Mich. J. Int'l L. 41 (2007). Her article "The South African Judicial Appointments Process" has been published in the Osgoode Hall Law Journal.
• Prof. Rhonda Copelon won the 2006 Ruth G. Schapiro Memorial Award.
• Prof. Sid Harring's report Our Land They Took: San land rights under threat in Namibia, which he co-wrote with Willem Odendaal, was published by the Legal Assistance Centre of Namibia.
• Prof. Debbie Zalesne's article "Lessons from Equal Opportunity Harasser Doctrine: Challenging Sex-Specific Appearance and Dress Codes" has been published in the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy. The piece challenges the doctrine upholding sex-specific dress codes (e.g., women required to wear makeup, men required to keep their hair short).

Notable alumni

• Rev. Dr. Iyanla Vanzant, '88, life coach on NBC's Starting Over.
• Arthur L. Aidala, '92, prominent NY City defense attorney, New York City Council candidate and Fox News legal analyst.
• Paul Lewis, '87, Chief of Staff to the Chief Administrative Judge of New York, Ann Pfau.^[12][13]
• Benjamin Chevat, '86, Chief of Staff, Rep Carolyn B. Maloney (D), 14th District of New York; Chief of Staff to New York Assembly Speaker Saul Weprin (D-Queens) (1986 to 1994).^[14][15]
• Robert Bank, '86, Executive Vice President of the American Jewish World Service; former Chief Operating Officer, Gay Men's Health Crisis.^[16]
• K. Jacob Ruppert, '94, New York City historian and presently Court Counsel to the 11th Judicial District Court of the State of Louisiana, was the founding Co-Editor-and-Chief of the CUNY Law Review, now known as the New York City Law Review.
• Kary L. Moss, '87, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.^[17]
• Daniel J. O'Donnell, '87, New York State Assembly Member (D) 69th Assembly District, Sponsor of the Marriage Equality Act.^[18]
• Brian F. Curran, '94, New York State Assembly Member (R) 14th Assembly District is a CUNY Law graduate.

References

External links

• CUNY School of Law Official Website
• CUNY's Public Interest Law Association
• New York City Law Review
• CUNY Law on Facebook
• CUNY Law on Twitter
• CUNY Law on LinkedIn
• CUNY Law on YouTube
• The Unofficial, Unaffiliated CUNY Law Suit Blog
• The Unofficial, Unaffiliated CUNY Law Scrapbook