Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker to Speak at New York Law School Commencement May 13

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New York, NY (May 5, 2011)—The Honorable Cory A. Booker, Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, will address the graduates at New York Law School’s 119th Commencement on Friday, May 13, 2011, at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, at 10 a.m. Mayor Booker will also receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

The School will graduate 560 students: 493 candidates for the Juris Doctor (J.D.), 63 candidates for the Master of Laws (LL.M.), and four candidates for the Master of Arts (M.A.) in Mental Disability Law Studies.

The President’s Medal of Honor will be awarded to Harry H. Wellington, Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus of New York Law School. The award is given to the Law School’s most outstanding and accomplished alumni and its most generous benefactors, and acknowledges those who have made the most significant contributions to the history of the Law School by their exemplary professional lives and their generosity.

About the Commencement Speaker
The Honorable Cory A. Booker was sworn in as Mayor of Newark, New Jersey on July 1, 2006 following a sweeping electoral victory. Under Mayor Booker’s administration, the City of Newark has led the nation among large cities for reductions in shootings and murders since July 1, 2008, achieving decreases of more than 40 percent reductions in both categories. Transformation of the Newark Police Department under Mayor Booker’s leadership, together with the deployment of more than 100 surveillance cameras throughout the city, has led to Newark setting the nationwide pace for crime reduction.

Among other recent notable achievements under Mayor Booker’s leadership, the City of Newark has doubled affordable housing production and has committed to a $40 million transformation of the city’s parks and playgrounds through a groundbreaking public/private partnership.

Mayor Booker is a member of numerous boards and advisory committees including Democrats for Education Reform, Columbia University Teachers’ College Board of Trustees, and the Black Alliance for Educational Options. He received his B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University, a B.A. in Modern History at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and completed his law degree at Yale University.

Mayor Booker has appeared in numerous publications, including, among others, TIME, Esquire, New Jersey Monthly (naming him as one of New Jersey’s top 40 under 40), Black Enterprise (naming him to the Hot List, America’s Most Powerful Players under 40) and The New York Times Magazine.

About the President’s Medal of Honor Recipient
Harry H. Wellington led New York Law School as President, Dean, and Professor of Law for eight years beginning on July 1, 1992. On that date, the former Dean of Yale Law School was also made a Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale University. He has since become Dean Emeritus of New York Law School and retired from the faculty, after a total of 51 years teaching law.

Dean Wellington began his academic career at Stanford Law School where he taught for one year. He then joined the faculty at Yale Law School, later serving as Dean from 1975 to 1985. In 1983, he was named Sterling Professor of Law. In 1992, upon his retirement from the Yale faculty, Dean Wellington joined the faculty at New York Law School to lead it as President and Dean. Dean Wellington helped build New York Law School’s reputation by putting together and overseeing a first-rate faculty of renowned scholars. He remained Dean of New York Law School for eight years until 2000, and in 2007, he retired from teaching. He continues to serve on the Law School’s Board of Trustees.

Dean Wellington holds appointments in several learned societies, including the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute. He has been a Ford and Guggenheim Fellow, and a Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution.

Dean Wellington received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from Harvard. Upon graduation from Harvard, he clerked for United States Circuit Judge Calvert Magruder and later for United States Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

About New York Law School
Founded in 1891, New York Law School is an independent law school located in lower Manhattan near the city’s centers of law, government, and finance. New York Law School’s renowned faculty of prolific scholars has built the School’s strength in such areas as constitutional law, civil and human rights, labor and employment law, media and information law, urban legal studies, international and comparative law, and a number of interdisciplinary fields. The School is noted for its nine academic centers: Center on Business Law & Policy, Center on Financial Services Law, Center for International Law, Center for New York City Law, Center for Professional Values and Practice, Center for Real Estate Studies, Diane Abbey Law Center for Children and Families, Institute for Information Law & Policy, and Justice Action Center. New York Law School has more than 13,000 graduates and currently enrolls some 1,500 full-time students and 430 part-time students in its J.D. program and its four advanced degree programs in financial services law, real estate, tax, and mental disability law studies. www.nyls.edu

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LaToya Jordan, Assistant Director of Communications
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