Alberto Alemanno, who teaches at NYU Law Abroad in Paris, was selected as a 2015 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Philip Alston was appointed by the UN secretary-general to serve on the Central African Republic Commission of Inquiry to Investigate Events Since January 1, 2013.

The Clinical Legal Education Association gave Claudia Angelos the 2015 award for Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teachers.

Anthony Appiah joined the New York Public Library’s Board of Trustees.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Rachel Barkow and a co-author called on President Obama to fix the federal clemency process.

Stephen Gillers ’68 received the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation’s 2015 Outstanding Scholar Award.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Ryan Goodman and two co-authors listed five principles Congress should follow when authorizing use of force.

Samuel Issacharoff was awarded the inaugural Appellate Advocacy Award by the Pound Civil Justice Institute.

Arthur Miller was named associate dean and director of the Tisch Institute for Sports Management, Media, and Business and received the 2015 Brandeis Medal from the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law.

Richard Pildes is scholarly co-chair of the National Constitution Center’s three-year project Coalition of Freedom, which aims to raise awareness of constitutional rights.

Catherine Sharkey was named a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

Anthony Thompson was appointed to Governor Cuomo’s new Council on Community Re-Entry and Reintegration.

In a New York Times op-ed, Richard Revesz and Jack Lienke ’11 praise President Obama’s Clean Power Plan for correcting a major error in the Clean Air Act.

ALUMNI BRIEFS

Neil Barofsky ’95, a partner at Jenner & Block, was tapped to monitor Credit Suisse Group AG after the bank pleaded guilty to helping Americans evade taxes.

Lauren Burke ’09, co-founder of Atlas: DIY, and Michael Lwin ’09, co-founder and managing director of Koe Koe Tech, received Echoing Green’s 2014 Global Fellowships, which support emerging social entrepreneurs.

Lawrence Byrne ’84 was appointed as the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for legal matters.

Yan Cao ’13 and Geoffrey Wertime ’14 were named 2015 Skadden Fellows.

Evan Chesler ’75 was named chairman of the Board of Trustees of the New York Public Library.

Martin Lipton ’55 received a Lifetime Achievement Award in the New York Law Journal’s Lawyers Who Lead by Example 2014 Awards.

Amy Marshak ’11 and Matthew Shahabian ’11 will clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, respectively, in the 2015–16 term.

Wendy Scott ’80 began her tenure as the Mississippi College School of Law’s first African American dean.

Jonathan Wolfson ’00, CEO of Solazyme, was honored with the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s 2015 George Washington Carver Award.

Jenny Yang ’96 was named chair of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

STUDENT BRIEFS

Max Bernstein ’15, Ijeoma Eke ’16, Rahul Hari ’16, and Neil Thakore ’15 took first place at the White Collar Crime Invitational, hosted by the Georgetown University Law Center Barristers’ Council.

Rahul Hari ’16 also won Baylor Law School’s 2015 Top Gun National Mock Trial Competition with a 6-0 record.

Amanda Russo ’15 won Best Direct Examination at the National Trial Advocacy Competition Region 2, sponsored by the New York State Bar Association Trial Lawyers Section.

Jeremy Schiffres ’16 and William Simoneaux ’16, led by coach Sarah Dowd ’15, won the Evan A. Evans Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition.

Dian Yu ’16 was awarded the 2014 Dennis R. Washington Achievement Graduate Scholarship from the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans.

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“Jeffrey Trachtman ’84, OUTLaw’s Alumnus of the Year, speaks about future of LGBT rights”
NYU Law website, 3/11/15

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Quiñones arrived in 1981 and quickly rose from a secretary to assistant director of financial aid. Though in that job for only three years, she says she learned so much: “Financial information is very personal. I had to find a way of explaining policy while at the same time letting them know I didn’t create it.”

In 1985, Quiñones became administrative director of the Graduate Division, a job she held for 21 years. She attended events hosted by student organizations and, like a proud parent, kept a “wall of fame” in her office that included Judge Jenny Rivera ’85 of the New York State Court of Appeals and Sherrilyn Ifill ’87, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. From 1998 to 2001, one of the students literally was her son; Yumari Martinez ’01 now serves as an assistant commissioner in the NYC Administration for Children’s Services.

Despite her retirement, Quiñones volunteered this spring, as usual, to assist the photographer who captures every student receiving a diploma at Convocation. She plans to continue to attend Law School events. “They think I’m kidding when I say, ‘I’m going to see you at graduation,’” she says with a laugh. “I’m not. I’m going to see everybody at graduation. I’m going to hug ’em and shake their hand.”

Quiñones invites students and alumni to contact her at mvq622@gmail.com.

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Adegbile, an NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorney for more than a decade, is a partner at WilmerHale. Malveaux is a professor at the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law who worked on the largest employment discrimination class action in US history, Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes (2011).

In their remarks, the honorees discussed challenges in the 50 years since the Civil Rights Act passed. “What I know is that in every fight in which I’ve been engaged, I have been committed to maintaining my integrity and defining success by standing for something,” said Adegbile. Malveaux advised the audience to “lead with your heart, not just your head.”

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“Women of Color Collective honors Leslie Spencer ’98 with 2015 Woman of Distinction Award”
NYU Law website, 3/9/15

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“Featured Alumnus: Ramsey Homsany ’09”
NYU Law website, 6/1/15

“Women of Color Collective honors Linda Gadsby ’92 with 2014 Woman of Distinction Award”
NYU Law website, 3/3/14

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Recognizing a need for better software to organize litigation data, Asay began collaborating on the side with a team of programmers to build a product that would help litigators categorize and cross-reference case information. Before she knew it, Asay had a project on her hands that demanded much of her attention. “I just started working with these guys and mapping out what I would want my dream software to look like as a litigator,” Asay says. Next thing she knew, “I just woke up and realized that I was an entrepreneur, with a startup in legal technology.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that she would have recognized the need to organize and manage data— because she was really very good at it,” Diane Zimmerman, Samuel Tilden Professor of Law Emerita, says of Asay, her former student and research assistant. “She was also always really gutsy,” says Zimmerman. “I remember she took a semester to study at the Sorbonne during law school and took classes in French. I asked her, before she went, ‘Is your French really that good?’ And she said, ‘Well, it’s going to get a lot better.’ It must have been an incredible amount of work, but she wasn’t daunted at all.”

Helming a startup is not without its challenges, from finding investors to courting clients. She wakes up every day not knowing what’s going to happen. But Asay, a travel enthusiast who has been to every continent, says that this element of surprise in her daily life and work now is “the closest thing I’ve found to traveling at home.”

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“Jay’s transformative philanthropic support of the Law School was matched by his love for its intellectual life,” said Dean Trevor Morrison in a Law School statement. “I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to know and work with Jay, to call him my friend, and to take inspiration from his unquenchable thirst for learning.”

After graduating from the Law School, Furman earned an MPhil in economics at Columbia, then taught at Cardozo School of Law for two years before dedicating his career to real estate. As president of RD Management, founded by his father, he led affiliate operations that ranged over three dozen states.

“Only a few people are lucky enough, determined enough, talented enough, to have one big idea that significantly changes the world for the better. Jay had many,” said Vicki Been ’83, former director of the Furman Center and now commissioner of housing preservation and development for New York City, in her eulogy. “His curiosity, sense of adventure, and constant desire to make things better, combined with his ability to just do it, come what may, has left us with a richer, more interesting world.”

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After graduating from Providence College and NYU Law, Slain worked as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and later as vice president and general counsel of AIM Companies. Before joining the NYU Law faculty in 1977, he taught at Indiana University School of Law–Indianapolis and Ohio State University College of Law. Throughout his career, Slain mentored scores of corporate lawyers, many of whom went on to become partners at major Wall Street firms.

Slain and Associate Dean for Career Services Irene Dorzback bonded over their mutual concern for students’ employment. “What emerged through his storytelling was how much he knew about the careers of so many students and alumni,” says Dorzback. “It was very clear that he had maintained relationships with many of them over a long time.”

Pauline Newman Professor of Law Rochelle Dreyfuss recalls striking up a conversation on a Metro-North train with a Law School alumnus who asked if Slain was still on the faculty. “I said yes, and he told me that Jack was far and away his favorite professor, and the one from whom he learned the most.” To Dreyfuss’s surprise, the man in front of them then turned around to praise Slain similarly— followed by yet another man across the aisle.

“Around 20 minutes later,” continues Dreyfuss, “as the train pulled into my station and I walked to the door, someone in a seat fairly far from where I’d been sitting stopped me. He needed to tell me that Jack was his very favorite teacher, too, and he too thought Jack was the kindest person he ever knew.”

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In 2014, CVLC received a grant from the Bristol- Myers Squibb Foundation to evaluate the effect of legal aid on veterans’ mental health and well-being. “The value of what we provide isn’t just in whether you have a great legal outcome; it’s also that you might be less likely to use the emergency room, or to have an extended hospital stay,” says Middleton. She hopes that this study will provide further evidence for the efficacy of integrating legal, mental, and medical aid. “Ultimately, we would love the VA nationally to recognize the value of this model and adopt it as part of the spectrum of services that they provide veterans,” she says.

Middleton did not plan for her career to follow this particular path. A Root-Tilden-Kern D’Agostino Scholar at NYU Law, Middleton credits her experience as a student in the Family Defense Clinic taught by Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law Martin Guggenheim ’71 with igniting her passion for representing communities in need. “The clinic helped open my mind in terms of what a vulnerable community is,” Middleton says. “Veterans, historically, haven’t been embraced as a population of high need by the legal services community. In part because of my experience in that clinic, I was open to a broader conception of who lawyers can help.”

Guggenheim, who remembers his former student as “an outstanding member of the community, a very vibrant person,” says that one’s choice to fight a social injustice may look random to others but naturally follows when a person realizes “not enough people are troubled by what’s going on in that particular area, and that’s exactly what happened to Margaret.”

After law school, Middleton worked as a Thomas Emerson Fellow at David Rosen & Associates, a New Haven law firm that focuses on human rights and public interest law. Moved by stories that she had heard on the radio about veterans with insufficient access to mental health care, Middleton volunteered at the Errera Community Care Center, which is part of the Connecticut VA. There, she met fellow volunteer Howard Udell ’65, who had retired as the chief legal officer of Purdue Pharma. “When they found out that he was a lawyer, the veterans would just pop in and say, ‘Hey, I have a quick question about a legal issue,’” Middleton says. “By the time I met him, Howard had taken on 30 clients that way, totally incidentally.”

Middleton and Udell both recognized that veterans needed greater access to legal services, so together they founded CVLC with a grant from the Initiative for Public Interest Law at Yale. When the center launched in 2009, Middleton was the only full-time employee; Udell was a volunteer adviser. Now the center has seven full-time staffers and has recruited more than 600 Connecticut lawyer volunteers. “Meeting and working with Howard was one of the greatest strokes of luck in my life,” Middleton says of her co-founder, who passed away in August 2013. “It’s rare that you get to meet someone who is as kind and brilliant and funny as Howard was, and it was an incredible gift to have a partner in doing something like this, so that we both equally owned the joy of doing the work and the stress of trying to make it happen.”

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Related Link

“Featured Alumna: Margaret Middleton ’07”
NYU Law website, 11/1/14

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