Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Time: 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Locale: New York Law School, Wellington Conference Room
A panel of distinguished New York Law School alumni who represent workers in a variety of contexts explained how you can go where the jobs are.
Speakers included:
David Fish '96, Partner, Rosen, Leff LLP (Hempstead, NY)
Barbara Ingram Edmonds '90, Director of Field Operations, AFSCME District Council 37 (New York, NY)
Mohima Joishy '00, Denise Bonnaig & Assocs. (New York, NY)
Martin Silberman '78, Silberman & Rhine LLP (New York, NY)
Gary Stone '81, Legal Services for the Elderly (New York, NY)
The panel was moderated by Professor Seth Harris, Director of Labor and Employment Law Programs at New York Law School. Refreshments were served.
Seth Harris: Labor and Employment Law
Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Time: 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Locale: New York Law School, Room B400
The JAC "Faculty Workshop Series" is designed to introduce 1L students to the various fields of social justice lawyering. This lunch was hosted by Professor Seth Harris. Professor Harris discussed his career in the Clinton Administration and the role of lawyers as public-policy makers and political leaders. He also provided information on relevant course offerings at New York Law School, and opportunities for students interested in this field of practice.
On October 24, 2003,
the Labor and Employment Law Program presented:
Our Right to Work, Our Demand to be Heard: People with Disabilities, the 2004 Election, and Beyond A Public Policy Address for
National Disability Employment Awareness Month
The Honorable Tony Coelho
Former Majority Whip in the U.S. House of Representatives; author and principal sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act; one of the nation’s leading advocates for people with disabilities.
Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Time: 12:00 noon - 2:00 p.m.
Locale: New York Law School, Wellington Conference Center
Herman Schwartz, professor of law at American University and a top constitutional law authority, discussed his latest publication, The Rehnquist Court: Judicial Activism on the Right, a new compilation of essays by sixteen legal intellectuals. The essays focus primarily on a series of five-to-four decisions that indicate unequivocally that Rehnquist and a conservative majority have engaged in a judicial activism resulting in an erosion of civil rights and a government less able to respond to vital social needs.
A short film, Packing the Courts: The Battle Over President Bush's Judicial Appointments, was shown.
For further information, please e-mail the NYLS chapter of the American Constitution Society at nyls_acs@yahoo.com.
Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Locale: New York Law School, Stiefel Room
The debate featured best-selling author Richard North Patterson; NRA board member and former Georgia Representative Bob Barr; Skidmore College Professor Mary Zeiss Stange, author of Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America; and Jon Lowy, Senior Attorney of the Legal Action Project at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The panel was moderated by New York Law School Professor Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU.
Richard North Patterson served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Ohio; a trial attorney for the Securities & Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco; and was the SEC’s liaison to the Watergate Special Prosecutor. In 1993, he retired from the practice of law to devote himself to writing. He is a member of the boards of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Common Cause, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, and the National Partnership for Women and Families.
Patterson's eleventh novel, Protect and Defend (2000), about the controversial nomination of the first woman to be Chief Justice, and her entanglement in an incendiary lawsuit regarding late-term abortion and parental consent, became his seventh international bestseller and received a Maggie Award from Planned Parenthood for its treatment of issues regarding reproductive rights. It is now being developed as a feature film. Patterson’s twelfth novel, Balance of Power, will be released on the day of the debate, and confronts one of America’s most emotional and divisive issues—gun violence.
Bob Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, serving as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee. He occupies the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy at the American Conservative Union, serves as Distinguished Fellow with Lt. Col. Oliver North’s Freedom Alliance, as a Board Member at the Patrick Henry Center, and is the Honorary Chair for Citizens United.
Mary Zeiss Stange is the author of Woman the Hunter, the first cultural history of the relationship of women and hunting, and has gained national recognition as the primary scholar working on the subject today. Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America, a collaboration with psychologist Carol K. Oyster, deals with women’s various positive relationships with firearms (self-protection, hunting, recreational and competitive shooting, careers like law enforcement and the military).
The Legal Action Project at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence is a national public interest law program which provides pro bono legal representation to victims of gun violence, including—cities, counties, and other public entities—in lawsuits against the gun industry and assists in the defense of reasonable gun laws when they are attacked in the courts. Lowy litigates lawsuits against gun manufacturers, dealers, and owners where guns have not been made, sold, or stored responsibly. Among other cases, he is counsel for victims of the Washington, D.C.-area sniper shootings; is counsel for several victims of the white supremacist shooter who terrorized minorities in the Midwest over the July 4th weekend in 1999; he was co-trial counsel for the plaintiffs in Dix v. Beretta (the first case to be tried alleging that gun makers have a duty to childproof guns); and is co-counsel in numerous other cases, including cases brought by several cities, including Washington, D.C., New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Cincinnati, in their pending suits against the gun industry.
Presentation Co-Sponsored by the Justice Action Center and the National Lawyers Guild, New York City Chapter
Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2003
Time: 7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
Locale: New York Law School, Stiefel Reading Room
Featured speakers included:
Fabiola Letelier, well-known Chilean human rights lawyer and sister of Orlando Letelier (official in Allende Pupular Unity Government who was assassinated in Washington, DC in 1976 by the Chilean secret police and the CIA)
Jose Matta, Chilean exile and former political prisoner, currently Administrator, 1199 SEIU GNY Education Fund; William Schaap, co-editor of Covert Action: The Roots of Terrorism, former co-editor of Covert Action
Quarterly Justice Laura Safer Espinosa of the New York State Supreme Court, as moderator
FACULTY WORKSHOP SERIES Lenni Benson: The Deportation of Emma Goldman and the History of Immigration Law
Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2003
Time: 12:30 - 2:00
Locale: Conference Rooms A & B
The JAC "Faculty Workshop Series" is designed to introduce 1L students to the various fields of social justice lawyering. This lunch was hosted by Professor Lenni Benson. Lenni Benson spoke on immigration law in United States history. In particular, she focused on the deportation of Emma Goldman in 1919.
Rally and Festival sponsored by the NYC Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Committee
Date: Saturday, October 4, 2003
Time: 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Locale: Flushing Meadows Park, Queens
The rally and festival focused attention on issues relevant to immigrant workers, including legalization and a "road to citizenship," family reunification, immigrants' rights in the workplace, and civil rights and liberties. For more information, call 212-492-2164 or 212-604-9552, or visit www.iwfr.org or www.nycclc.org.
JAC SPEAKER SERIES
Should Same-Sex Couples Be Denied the Freedom to Marry?
Date: Monday, September 15, 2003
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Locale: New York Law School, Stiefel Room
With recent court decisions in Canada and the United States lending impetus to the debate over the rights of same-sex couples, JAC invited students to consider this timely issue. Speakers included Evan Wolfson, Executive Director of Freedom to Marry, and Vince McCarthy, Senior Counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice. For more information, please call 212-431-2375.
Date: Thursday, July 31, 2003
Time: 12:30 - 2:30
Locale: New York Law School, Wellington Conference Room
The Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund (PRLDEF) sponsored a talk on international human rights entitled "Globalization, Human Rights, and the Survival of Indigenous Peoples." The participants spoke on advocates' use of the Alien Torts Claim Act (ATCA) to bring actions against human rights violators, and on recent counter-efforts to limit the availability of the ATCA in these cases.
For additional information on any JAC event, please contact the Center by e-mail at jac@nyls.edu or at 212-431-2314.
