The IAEA grew out of the “Atoms for Peace” program in the late 1950s and was charged both with the containment of nuclear weaponry and the promotion of peaceful nuclear energy. In many ways its mission is still the same, but the post-cold-war world has presented the agency with a new set of challenges. As an Egyptian national and a strong believer in strict arms control, ElBaradei is uniquely suited to lead the organization as it faces nuclear proliferation among Islamic and Middle Eastern nations and elsewhere.

During the May graduation ceremonies, the University presented ElBaradei with an honorary degree, which joins the master’s degree and doctorate he received at the Law School in the 1970s. ElBaradei’s adviser during his studies was Thomas M. Franck, one of the world’s leading experts in international law. Franck was so impressed by his former student that when he was asked to head the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), he said he would only do so if ElBaradei could be seconded from the Egyptian government to help him.

Born in Cairo in 1942, ElBaradei was already well-versed in the law before he began his studies in the United States. His father, Mostafa ElBaradei, was president of the Egyptian Bar Association, and by 1962 ElBaradei had graduated from the Law Faculty of Cairo University.

He began his career as an international diplomat with the Egyptian Foreign service in 1964, working both in New York and Geneva before enrolling at NYU. On completing his doctorate, he returned to the Egyptian foreign service before Franck asked for him to be appointed as a senior research fellow at the U.N.

ElBaradei joined the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1984. In an interview with an Iranian newspaper, he said of his move that, “I wanted to expand my role from someone who defends the national interests of a small country to one that defends the interests of human beings throughout the world.”

Defending the world is no easy matter. When ElBaradei issued a detailed report in November 2003 outlining Iran’s attempts to deceive weapons inspectors but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prove the country had plans to develop a nuclear arsenal, he came under attack from the Bush administration and Arab states alike. But ElBaradei has built a reputation as a skilled diplomat who has a steadfast commitment to the principles of law. His dual heritage may at times leave him in a double bind, but an honest arbitrator rarely has a smooth passage.

Lester Pollack (’57), chairman of the Law School’s Board of Trustees, asked the class to help the Law School continue to lead in the field of legal education. He also gave the graduates a little practical career advice: offer fair judgments and always try to inspire others.

University President John Sexton praised the Law School faculty and warned the graduating class to steer clear of “sins of omission,” to show kindness and compassion, and to feel confident in “speaking truth to power.”

Two students then spoke on behalf of their classmates. Steven Budlender delivered an address for his LL.M. classmates, and Brandon Lofton spoke for the J.D. graduates.

Budlender discussed the increasing globalization of law, encouraging his peers to seek out public-interest opportunities.

Lofton described his childhood dream of being a lawyer, explaining how he wanted to be a source of positive social change and to emulate legal heroes such as Thurgood Marshall.

The convocation address was delivered by Burt Neuborne, the John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law and legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice, which aims to protect civil liberties. He is also known for his work on international holocaust litigation. Neuborne focused on the impact that Brown v. Board of Education had on him as a young boy growing up in Brooklyn. He reminded the graduates that public law is an expression of private values and that constitutional law is the engine of social change. Neuborne noted that Brown was only the first step in a series of civil rights advances in the United States and implored the class to make sure that the voice of Brown lives on.

The Class of 2004, led by a Class Gift Executive Committee including students Peter Lallas and David Berman, then presented the Law School with the first-ever class gift. More than 50 percent of the class donated $8,000 to the fund; the gift was accepted by an appreciative Dean Revesz.

The case was about a police officer who stopped a possible drunk driver who was on his way to deliver jewelry to a retailer. As the officer searched the driver’s van, he stole some of the jewelry. He then let the driver go after taking a bribe. Two legal issues were in play before the moot court: First, can the bribe be charged as a federal crime since the policeman is an agent of a state organization that receives federal funds? Second, how should the stolen property be valued, by its wholesale or retail price? The answer to that question could determine the length of a sentence the officer might receive. The answer was hardly clear cut, as Judge Kaye conveyed when she asked Pelham, “Mr. Pelham, honestly, does anyone ever pay full retail price for diamond earrings?”

Although Medic, Stark, and Pelham performed well, each making their points articulately, it was Fitzpatrick who won over the judges. Arguing for the appellant (defendant), he said the crime could be considered a federal offense only if there were a connection between the crime and the funds received from the government. Anything else, he insisted, “threatens to expand the federal government’s prosecutorial powers.”

The judges awarded him the prize of Best Oralist. That was quite an honor, considering that Judge O’Scannlain ended the afternoon by remarking, “The quality of performance that we saw here today is well above the average quality I see on the Robert Fitzpatrick (’04) looking the part. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Krupa Desai (’06) is one of them. Those outside the legal world often assume that top law students immediately grab summer slots with high-end law firms. But Desai, like many of her classmates opted to do something different. She headed west to spend the summer doing grass-roots advocacy work for Bet-Tzedek, a nonprofit in Los Angeles.

“I see law as a tool to affect social justice. I wanted to go to law school before I worked for Teach for America, but that experience really fueled the fire,” she said.

The Law School is well known for its support of public interest advocacy both through its Public Interest Law Center and through the Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship Program, which funds legal training for prospective public interest lawyers. Support for public interest advocacy at the Law School was further strengthened last year with the introduction of guaranteed Public Interest Law Center funding for any firstor second-year public interest internship. Desai was one of more than 300 Law School students who this year decided to use a grant.

Bet Tzedek is Hebrew for “house of justice.” The organization, which is funded by a broad base of state, corporate, and private contributors, was founded by volunteers 30 years ago as a law clinic providing pro bono legal services to the most vulnerable members of the local community. Since then, it has grown from a one-evening-a-week drop-in center to one of the country’s foremost providers of legal services. There are now more than 30 affiliated centers throughout Los Angeles County catering to more than 10,000 people.

One of the advantages that public sector internships have over those in the private sector is the level of responsibility given to interns. “It’s working out really well,” said Desai. “It’s very practical. I’m dealing with civil legal services and issues related to public benefits, Social Security, and disability benefits. I am currently working on a brief for a client who has been denied Medicare after serious surgery. It’s a great follow-up to our firstyear lawyering course; I can really put what I learned into practice.”

But it’s a tough decision for young lawyers to enter the public interest sector. Recent graduates are faced by a financial double disincentive—soaring post-law school debt combined with the lure of corporate pay packets. The imbalance of resources between public and private firms makes itself felt even before graduation. Second-year interns in corporate law offices can expect to earn upward of $2,500 a week; public interest internships, by contrast, are largely unpaid (except for the Law School’s funding).

The Bet Tzedek internship comes after Desai’s first year at the Law School. She is considering applying for term-time internships to gain as much experience as possible in the two years before she graduates. Although she intends to round out her experience by spending a summer working for a private law firm, eventually Desai plans to return to public practice.

The award, named in memory of the preeminent U.S. Supreme Court justice who was also a member of the Nuremberg tribunal, is sponsored by law firm Chadbourne & Parke. The $2,500 prize is awarded for the year’s best published student article tackling international or comparative law.

Cohen’s essay appeared in the Yale Journal of International Law, having been chosen for publication by the Yale Young Scholars Symposium. The symposium selects one article for publication each year.

Cohen addresses the hypocrisy that seems to characterize U.S. foreign policy. Among other instances, he cites America’s backing for the Nuremberg, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda tribunals with its opposition to the International Criminal Court, and the U.S. refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, despite its railing against states for developing weapons of mass destruction. He argues that the contrast between American support for the creation of the United Nations, and its unilateral advance on Iraq, is only the most recent example.

Cohen suggests that in light of the history of American international relations, U.S. inconsistency points to something more dangerous than mere pragmatism. “Such divergent actions may actually be informed by a coherent, specifically American conception of international law.”

This is a conception, he explains, that stems from a U.S. founding ideology that presupposes itself as the only truly legitimate state in the world. “During more isolationist phases, the United States, suspicious of the dangerous outside world, uses international law as a shield to protect its borders and its citizens. When roused to intervention, however, America girds itself in its utopian mission and takes action on behalf of the world’s ‘oppressed’ people, asserting the illegitimacy of the states against which it fights.” Cohen cites President Bush’s recent ultimatum to the Taliban, Clinton’s speech on Kosovo, Wilson’s address to Congress, and McKinley’s declaration of war against Spain.

His insightful essay concludes that ideology inevitably shapes the conception states have of international law, and that this obstacle must be overcome in order for international law to be truly global. Cohen suggests that to deal with this challenge, “international law needs to be seen less as a body of neutral principles waiting to be discovered, and more as a dynamic and interactive process of law creation. International lawyers must take an active role in the construction of an international order that builds upon, interacts with, and can eventually even reshape state ideology.”

Cohen said in an interview that “the goal should be to bring the U.S., and every other state for that matter, to the point where they follow international law because they feel committed to it, not because any institution has forced it upon them.”

“Harlan’s piece is a nuanced intellectual history of American foreign relations. This is a mature and impressive piece of work from a promising scholar,” said Cohen’s former teacher, constitutional law expert, Barry Friedman, NYU’s Jacob D. Fuchsberg Professor of Law.

“Fear is a great motivator,” he said. “Even though I’ve taken four bar exams, I’ve given 100 percent to each one. It’s an all-or-nothing kind of test.”

His hard work paid off. Ayyar scored higher on the exam than anyone else in Texas. He was honored with a tour of the state’s Supreme Court, where he was asked to speak at the swearing-in ceremony for new Bar members. Ayyar’s speech focused on the many benefits of practicing law. “We often hear that it’s fashionable to be frustrated with the many demands and pressures of being a lawyer and trying to maintain life’s balance,” he said. “But as we reflect and gain perspective, we recognize that it is a privilege.”

The first lawyer in his immigrant family, the 29-year-old Ayyar is quick to attribute his success to his support network. He also gives full credit to his wife, Sandhya, a tax accountant who passed the CPA exam, for her understanding when he studied through the night and came home “tired and cranky.”

Ayyar spent his undergraduate years at Carnegie Mellon University, then graduated cum laude from University of California, Hastings College of the Law with a J.D. in 2000. He took his first bar exam in California before securing a job at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich, a Silicon Valley law firm. Upon his acceptance to the NYU School of Law in January 2003 for an LL.M. in taxation, he prepared for possible employment by taking the New Jersey and New York bar exams, but never practiced in either state. Instead, he focused on his education.

“If you want to do an LL.M. in taxation, clearly NYU is number one without a doubt,” Ayyar said.

Currently practicing at Cox & Smith in San Antonio, Ayyar says he feels lucky to have a career that allows him to combine his interest in finance with his natural people skills.

“My undergraduate background is finance-oriented,” he said. “I always liked it, and wanted to have a career in it.”

But his experience in tax law has far surpassed his expectations. “I had the idea of a tax attorney as a guy with green eye shades, crunching numbers,” he said. “But it’s not like that at all. It’s much more fact-specific, and very intellectually demanding.”

It’s also a surprisingly social career, based largely on the ability to communicate clearly. “My job is not about numbers, it’s about people and their businesses. You’re trying to understand them and plan for them, and I find that fascinating. It’s really about the relationships you have with the client.”

Despite achieving the highest bar score in Texas, Ayyar remains modest, insisting, “I’m just glad I passed.”

A takeoff on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Ricky is the story of five lucky students (played by Deepa Janakiraman, ’05; Hillary Noll, ’04; Margo Kaplan, ’04; Mitchell Kent, ’05; and Kelly Jordan, ’04) who win a magical tour of the new Law School building with the quirky Dean Ricky Wonka (Arthur Dobelis, ’05). As they travel through the school, the students and everyone they meet poke fun at all aspects of law school life. In one scene, law students who want to start a new journal are so desperate for hard-to-come-by supplies that they end up fighting over ink toner. Elizabeth Loeb, ’04; Erica Alterwitz, ’05; Eve Moskowitz, ’05; Catherine Cugell, ’04; Krupa Desai, ’06; Casey Cohn,’04, and Gillian Burgess, ’06, had the audience roaring with their hilarious slap-stick fisticuffs. Another scene parodied the wide variety of courses and seminars available to law students: Professors Rachel Barkow (Heather Childs, ’06), David Richards (Ariel Joseph, ’06), Rochelle Dreyfuss (Robin Effron, ’04), Noah Feldman (Joseph Treloar, ’04), Linda Silberman (Meredith Stead, ’06), and Barry Friedman (Rob Elder, ’04) sang and danced their way through a discussion of the merits of a Colloquium on Law and Interpretive Dance. Even real professors got into the act: Dean Richard Revesz and several other members of the faculty made cameo appearances discussing their “methods” of choosing grades, such as dropping papers from the stairs.

High Note

The heart of the revue is always the music—and Ricky’s numbers were terrific. The show opened strongly with a spoof of the Erie doctrine, the Supreme Court, and the Root-Tilden-Kern program sung to the tune of U2’s “Beautiful Day”. Other musical highlights included a takeoff of Fiddler on the Roof’s “Matchmaker,” in which students asked Gail Cutter, then-director of career counseling and placement, to strike them a match with a prestigious law firm; and an entertaining rap, “Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Third Year,” delivered with flair by Kent and Emily Bushnell (’05). Ricky and the Lawyer Factory ended with a flourish, with the cast’s own rendition of “Higher and Higher.” They sang “Our law is lifting us higher than we’ve ever been lifted before. Let’s keep it up when things look dire; we’ll have NYU pride forever more.” The rousing chorus brought the audience to its feet. Law Revue definitely passed with flying colors.