U N I V ER SI T Y OF PI T TSBU RGH
MAGAZINE
A LEGAL SEEDLING TAKES ROOT
From chickens to apiaries, urban farms are the buzz. Two Pitt Law entrepreneurs hoe a new row with their prize-winning plan for a food law think tank.
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2015
M A G A Z I N E
DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF LAW
William M. Carter Jr. EDITOR
Kelly Sjol WRITER
Christine H. O’Toole CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Jan-Tosh Gerling Kelly Sjol Endia Vereen, ’15 DESIGN
Landesberg Design
BOARD OF VISITORS
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
Hon. Ruggero J. Aldisert ’47* Vincent J. Bartolotta Jr. ’70 Linda Beerbower Burke ’73 Hon. Robert J. Cindrich ’68 Senator Jay Costa Jr. Q. Todd Dickinson ’77 Hon. D. Michael Fisher Elke Flores-Suber ’96 Brad A. Funari ’02 James M. Gockley ’80 Vincent J. Grogan ’60 Jo Ann Haller ’80 Janice C. Hartman ’75 Gerald T. Hathaway ’79 Dawne S. Hickton ’83 Chairperson Frederick Wells Hill ’78 Joseph A. Katarincic ’60 Richard B. Kelson ’72 James E. Kopelman ’66 Hon. Lisa Pupo Lenihan ’83 Marvin S. Lieber ’58 Roslyn M. Litman ’52 Hon. Frank J. Lucchino ’64 Hon. David J. Mayernik Martha H. Munsch Mark A. Nadeau ’81 Jack H. Olender ’60 Timothy D. Pecsenye ’87 Diane W. Perer ’76 Robert J. Rogalski ’92 Hon. Eunice L. Ross ’51 Professor Pamela Samuelson Hon. Doris A. Smith-Ribner ’72 Jeffrey P. Taft ’92 Scott E. Westwood ’91
Bruce C. Fox ’84 President Patrick Sorek ’84 President-Elect 2016 Elizabeth L. Hughes ’04 Vice President Michael S. Nelson ’96 Treasurer Jill M. Weimer ’07 Secretary Lee Kubitz Goldfarb ’10 Assistant Secretary Joseph J. Bosick ’73 Past President Meredith Odato Graham ’11 Arnold B. Silverman ’62 Ronald Basso ’85 Maximilian F. Beier ’99 Thomas M. Beline ’07 Kathryn S. Nordick ’05 Roberta R. Wilson ’83 Harvey ‘Chip’ Amoe III ’03 Stuart W. Benson III, Esquire ’75 Necia B. Hobbes ’11 Ilene H. Fingeret ’86 Tony J. Thompson ’06 Hon. Mary Jane Bowes ’79 Hon. Kim D. Eaton ’81 Hon. Alan D. Hertzberg ’83 Hon. Marilyn J. Horan ’79 Hon. Lisa Pupo Lenihan ’83 Hon. Christine A. Ward ’82
*Deceased
PHOTOGRAPHER
Terry Clark WEBSITE
law.pitt.edu/magazine COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS?
lawmag@pitt.edu
Pitt Law Magazine is published by the Office of the Dean and the Office of Communications
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INSIDE PITT LAW
08 COMMUNITY POLICING
How can Pittsburgh become a national model for better relations between police and those they serve? Both advisors to a DOJ project, Professor David Harris and Fred Thieman, JD ’77, discuss the new plan.
14 GOING VIRAL
When Pitt Law offered a public health law MOOC at the height of the Ebola pandemic, 6,200 people signed up. Then measles broke out in the United States.
18 A LEGAL SEEDLING TAKES ROOT
From chickens to apiaries, urban farms are the buzz. Two Pitt Law entrepreneurs hoe a new row with their prize-winning plan for a food law think tank.
22 THE MAN WHO CHANGED 8 MILLION LIVES
Harry Colmery, Class of 1916, and his American Legion fought for passage of the GI Bill. The rest is history.
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FACULTY
34
ALUMNI
40 IN MEMORIAM 41
PARTING SHOT
AN ENERGETIC LAW SCHOOL
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FROM THE DEAN
Pitt Law continues to lead in developing the next generation of legal professionals; producing research of impact; and contributing to the local, national, and global communities through public service. In these pages, you will learn about new programs and initiatives coming to Pitt Law this academic year and how we are seizing opportunities to lead in new directions. Two of these new programs — the Pitt Law Legal Services Incubator and the Energy Law and Policy Institute — will launch this fall, and I’m confident they will become leading national models.
When Pitt Law was founded 120 years ago, western Pennsylvania was the nation’s entrepreneurial and technology hub. Industry rushed into Pittsburgh for its steel, iron, and coal. Energy was both the resource and the characteristic that defined the city. Although the economic landscape has been completely transformed, the same can be said today: Dynamic entrepreneurs are rushing here to advance innovative ideas of all kinds, and major companies are eagerly tapping into our talent pool. Pitt Law not only wants to support those forces, we want to inspire our students to be legal entrepreneurs and innovators (see “A Legal Seedling Takes Root,” page 18). We have been accomplishing this through our Innovation Practice Institute, and now the Pitt Law Legal Services Incubator redoubles our efforts. The incubator will be a collaborative program between the School of Law, our alumni, and the organized bar to mentor and support recent graduates who aspire to create new models of legal practice serving clients of modest means. In recognition of the boldness of our incubator, the American Bar Association (aba) recently awarded us an aba catalyst grant to support it, making Pitt Law one of only three law schools in the nation to receive such a grant this year. As the largest city atop the world’s secondlargest energy resource (the Marcellus Shale), Pittsburgh’s energy sector is bringing further investment and growth, and also spurring key debates about the law, regulation, and environmental impact of energy development. Pitt Law’s new Energy Law and Policy Institute will address the many issues and complexities inherent in sustainable energy development. As an interdisciplinary program, the institute will draw
on the many strengths of the entire University to galvanize law students to become experts and leaders in the energy sector. We continue to innovate and excel in many other ways. Our health law and international law programs were ranked 14th and 29th, respectively — out of nearly 200 law schools — in the most recent U.S. News & World Report law school specialty rankings. Drawing on the strength of those programs, we launched our first MOOC (massive open online course), an interdisciplinary course in international public health law, which received 6,200 worldwide registrants (see “Going Viral,” page 14). We will also this year launch the Health Care Compliance Online graduate certificate program, taught by an interdisciplinary team of nationally renowned experts in health law and policy, privacy regulation, business, and the life sciences. As we continue to innovate, we always remain true to our core mission: educating our students. We provide a rich and rigorous curriculum designed to produce successful, ethical, and practice-ready legal professionals. We encourage our students to find opportunities to serve underserved communities, and through our research challenge them to confront the pressing legal, political, and moral challenges that face our society. As we have the past 120 years, we take great pride in their accomplishments and in contributing to their success as local, national, and global leaders. I am proud of Pitt Law’s many achievements, and I invite you to learn about our latest initiatives in the following pages. WILLIAM M. CARTER JR. D E A N A N D P R O F E S S O R O F L AW
PITT LAW MAGAZINE
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ON CAMPUS
NEWS & E VENTS
CILE CELEBRATES 20TH ANNIVERSARY
Pitt Law’s Center for International Legal Education (CILE), which has developed a worldwide cadre of passport-wielding JDs and LLMs, marked its 20th anniversary Sept. 10 and 11, 2015. A formal dinner at the University Club kicked off a celebration that brought together more than a hundred CILE alumni, other members of Pitt’s international studies community, and supporters of CILE from the local business and legal communities. Speakers included Professor Ronald Brand, academic director and founder of CILE, who described the impact of CILE on its students and the world since its creation in 1995, and Vjosa Osmani, member of the Parliament of the Republic of Kosovo, who reflected on CILE from the perspective of an LLM and SJD graduate. The center has placed students in internship opportunities in nearly two dozen locations worldwide and has brought international students to summer and master’s degree programs, in addition to the JD program.
The celebration’s keynote speaker was Jeffrey Kovar, assistant legal adviser for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. State Department. He discussed his involvement in the recent reopening of diplomatic relations with Cuba and the prospects for closer ties between the U.S. and Cuba. Chancellor Emeritus Mark A. Nordenberg closed the program with a discussion of CILE’s growth and the ongoing importance of a global reach for the University of Pittsburgh.
DEAN JOINS PA COMMISSION ON JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE
The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts announced in April that Dean William M. Carter Jr. has joined the Pennsylvania Commission on Judicial Independence (PCJI) as a new member. Established by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2005, the goal of PCJI is to ensure independence, impartiality, and accountability in the judicial branch, as well as to work to improve civics education.
ACADEMIC INITIATIVES
MOVING UP
This year Pitt Law launches a new tax law concentration, a dual-degree program in cybersecurity law and management with Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, and an Accelerated Law Admission Program in partnership with Pitt’s College of Business Administration, which will allow students admitted to this program to earn both an under graduate degree and a JD in six years rather than seven.
In March, the University of Pittsburgh School of Law’s health law and inter national law programs were ranked 14th and 29th respectively in the U.S. News & World Report law school specialty rankings for 2016. Dean William M. Carter Jr. said, “I am delighted that our health and international law programs continue to be recognized for their national and global prominence in so many ways. Our health and international law programs have always been, and continue to be, among our key areas of distinction.” DRISCOLL HONORED FOR 40 YEARS
LuAnn Driscoll is a familiar face at Pitt Law, having served in various administrative roles for more than four decades. Professor Ronald Brand says Driscoll has been “one of the rocks on which progress and excellence at the School of Law has been built over a period of 40 years.” This past year, the School of Law honored Driscoll with a ceremony for her dedication and service. Driscoll began her employment with the University of Pittsburgh on August 19, 1974, and has worn many hats and assumed assignments of increasing responsibility until she was named Pitt Law’s office manager in August of 2009.
SCHOOL RECEIVES ABA GRANT FOR LEGAL SERVICES INCUBATOR
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SCHWEITZER FELLOWS
A record number of Pitt Law students were selected by the Pittsburgh Schweitzer Fellows Program as 2015–16 fellows: Out of 24 graduate students in the region, four are from Pitt Law. Kendra Strobel (2L) was selected as an Environmental Fellow, and will work with middle and high school girls with diabetes, addressing mental health issues such as depression and anxiety and the stressors of taking care of a chronic disease. She will implement her project at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh branches. Taylor Staiger (2L) was selected as a Traditional Fellow and will provide incoming and newly settled refugees in the Pittsburgh area with support to acclimating to their new life in the United States through the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Pittsburgh. Ashley Harris (3L) and Krystin Paul (3L) were selected as Traditional Fellows and will work with at-risk girls ages 12 to 15 in Pittsburgh fostering self-esteem. Last year’s Pitt Law recipient of the Schweitzer fellowship, Jonathan Ross, graduated from the program May 3. Ross utilized his fellowship working with Community Action Southwest in Washington County, teaching households about financial health, budgeting, taxes, and savings.
itt Law has received an American Bar Association (ABA) catalyst grant to establish the Pitt Law Legal Services Incubator. The incubator will support recent graduates in their development of sustainable practices focused on the region’s underserved communities. Working in partnership with the school’s existing Innovation Practice Institute, the incubator is a laboratory for innovation, identifying new and affordable ways to serve the “low bono” client base. All innovations will be shared with the incubator lawyers, the regional practicing bar, and nationally through an online database. Professor Thomas Ross, who will serve as faculty director for the project, headed the yearlong effort to develop the project and win ABA funding. Pitt Law’s project was one of just three in the nation to receive an ABA catalyst grant, awarded through its Legal Access Job Corps Task Force. The projects are designed to improve access to underserved populations as they expand opportunities to newly admitted lawyers. Ross emphasizes that redesigning legal services delivery is key to the Pitt Law effort. “It’s not enough to just generate more solo or small firm practice firms doing quality work,” he says. “The key is to get serious about innovation and efficiencies.” Stephanie Dangel, executive director of the Innovation Practice Institute, will support the project. “What’s intriguing is learning how our incubator can help other start-ups — local companies that can’t afford sophisticated counsel to set up their companies,” she says. The proposed incubator program will annually select four to five recent Pitt Law graduates who have passed the Pennsylvania Bar Exam and are licensed to practice. In each two-year term, a total of eight to ten lawyers will work within the incubator at the Barco Law Building. The incubator will provide office space, equipment, and technology, and a conference meeting room at modest rental rates. The ABA grant will support an Innovation Fellow, primarily responsible for developing a compendium of ideas on outreach to a variety of clients. “Estate planning, difficulties in living circumstances, landlord-tenant relations, people with ideas for great businesses — the real innovation must be in helping to identify what services they need, then finding innovative ways to deliver,” says Ross. “There’s a big market here, if we can figure it out.” Ross adds that the project benefits Pitt Law as well as young alumni. “This project not only helps recent graduates,” says Ross. “It teaches us lessons that we can fold into academic programs, and Dean Carter has been hugely supportive of this project. But it’s also about increasing access to justice. While there are no formal income limitations on clients who can be served, in message and mission, we’ll emphasize finding ways to serve ‘low bono’ clients.”
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POWERING REGION’S ‘ENGINE OF GROWTH’
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itt Law has launched a new Energy Law and Policy Institute to support the region’s ascendance as a center for energy production and research. Kevin Abbott, JD ’81, senior energy law partner at Reed Smith LLP and adjunct professor at Pitt Law, will serve as interim executive director of the institute, which will host its first major conference on energy law in the spring of 2016. The interdisciplinary institute, a major priority of the School of Law and the University, will train law students to become leaders in providing legal services to the regional, national, and international energy sectors. The Energy Law and Policy Institute will develop new courses in the field of energy law, with a particular focus on helping students to develop practiceready skills; host major annual conferences that bring together law firms, corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations to address cutting-edge issues in energy law and policy; and advance collaborative research and teaching initiatives in the field of energy law in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Center for Energy, Swanson School of Engineering, Katz Graduate School of Business, Graduate School of Public Health, and Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, among others. Abbott has more than 30 years of experience representing clients in the oil and gas industry, including natural gas exploration and production companies, interstate pipeline companies, and utilities. He is currently advising natural gas exploration and production companies on issues related to exploration of Marcellus and Utica Shales in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York. In addition to maintaining an active law practice, Abbott also has assumed leadership roles in the legal and business communities. He has taught Oil and Gas Law at Pitt Law since 2012; served as a Trustee of the Energy and Mineral Law Foundation and as a member of the law school’s Energy Law Advisory Board; authored numerous publications in the area of energy law; and received numerous awards, including the Pittsburgh Business Times 2012 Energy Leadership Award. “Pitt Law already has many strengths in the fields of energy and environmental law, and developing a formal Energy Law and Policy Institute to take our program to the next level has been one of my key priorities since becoming dean,” Carter said. “I am grateful for the University’s support of this initiative, and I am delighted that Kevin has agreed to serve as interim executive director. His leadership, knowledge, experience, and international prominence in energy law should position the school to develop one of the premier energy law programs in the country.” Commenting on the institute’s launch and Abbott’s appointment, Reed Smith Global Managing Partner Alexander Y. Thomas said, “Kevin’s decades of experience in oil and gas law have earned him high regard among his clients and colleagues alike. Reed Smith is delighted Kevin will be able to extend his deep insight to Pitt Law through its Energy Law and Policy Institute, even as he remains an active partner of the firm.” “I am grateful to the University for this opportunity and excited to get started,” Abbott said. “Energy is now and will continue to be the engine of this region’s growth for decades to come, and the University will play a role in that growth. I am very grateful to my partners at Reed Smith for supporting my role at the institute while I continue to represent my clients.”
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MOOT COURT COMPETITION MARKS 35 YEARS
Students compete in teams of two, delivering opening and closing statements, conducting direct and cross-examination of witnesses, and making evidentiary objections. This year’s Murray S. Love Trial Moot Court Competition mock trial case, created by the Moot Court Board, was a tort action based in slander. In the suit, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant defamed her after telling the parties’ landlord that she was an alcoholic and child abuser. The plaintiff alleged such statements resulted in her direct eviction and subsequently sued the defendant for damages in excess of $50,000. Two teams met in the final round on March 19, 2015, with Hon. Cynthia Reed Eddy presiding. Kevin Ryan Green, JD ’15, and Kristina Cahill, JD ’15, represented the plaintiff, and Jordan Berty, JD ’15, and Rebecca Kennedy, JD ’15, represented the defendant. For the second straight year, Berty and Kennedy took first place. The top-four finishers each receive a monetary prize and recognition in the graduation program. Members of the winning team automatically earn a spot on the subsequent year’s Mock Trial Team, which sends groups of students to represent Pitt Law in various external competitions, including the Allegheny County Academy of Trial Lawyers Mock Trial Competition, American Association for Justice Student Trial Advocacy Competition, Texas Young Lawyers Association National Trial Competition, and others. The annual competition, held during the spring semester, is named after Murray S. Love, a 1954 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a distinguished trial attorney in the Pittsburgh area. After his untimely death, his friends, family, and law firm created a fund to under write a mock trial competition in his memory. Love’s widow, Patty Love Anouchi, and nephew, Paul Supowitz, continue to support the school and competition. The first Murray S. Love Mock Trial Competition took place in 1981.
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH S C H O O L O F L AW C O M M E N C E M E N T
2015
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ennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Debra McCloskey Todd, ’82, addressed graduates during the 2015 commencement ceremony, held May 8 at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum. The Class of 2015 comprised 196 JD graduates, 11 LLM graduates, and four MSL graduates. Forty students graduated with honors. Assistant Professor Jasmine Gonzales Rose received the 2015 Robert T. Harper Excellence in Teaching Award, as voted on by the graduating class.
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ittsburgh is one of six U.S. cities chosen by the Department of Justice to participate in a new effort to promote effective community relations and training in metropolitan police forces. The National Initiative for Building Community, formed in March 2015, includes legal experts from institutions such as the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Yale Law School. Among the advisors to the local effort are Pitt Law Professor David A. Harris, a national authority on policing issues, and Frederick A. Thieman, JD ’77. Thieman served as U.S. attorney for Western Pennsylvania from 1993 to 1997; his leadership in efforts addressing societal and community factors for crime, especially those influencing youth, have continued throughout his career. He left private practice upon joining the Buhl Foundation as its president in 2007. Harris and Thieman will serve on the community advisory board for the initiative’s Pittsburgh project. For the next three years, they will monitor the initiative’s progress on three goals: procedural justice, implicit bias, and racial reconciliation. They discussed the opportunities and challenges of the task in a meeting at Pitt Law on July 20, 2015.
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COMMUNITY POLICING PI T TS BU RG H T E S TS N E W S T R AT E G I E S
DAV I D H A R R I S Pittsburgh’s policing problems are similar to other cities. But finally, Pittsburgh seems to be at a moment where there is a possibility of addressing some of them. Those moments have been here before. Fred, of course, was involved as U.S. attorney. Now, we’re at a point where the city and country really have to pay attention because the relationship between the police and people they serve is not simply a matter of just public relations. It is a matter of public safety. This isn’t just a way of saying, well, you can stop and frisk everybody as long as you’re nice about it. Being fair about these things takes a strong consideration of whether or not your decisions were right in the first place. But that’s the idea: that fairness and the justice and dignity involved in every small citizen-police encounter matters. F R E D T H I E M A N I agree. I would add that today it is an economic development issue for cities. Entering today’s marketplace, over half of U.S. new workers are minorities. We are 20 years away from when the White Anglo-Saxon population will be the minority. Cities that don’t adapt to that reality won’t be able to compete economically. We have a significant African American population in western Pennsylvania that suffers from serious economic and educational disparities. A lot of people experience discrimination or racism or barriers when they leave their
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neighborhoods, but when they see power being exercised in their own community, in a way that replicates perceptions of the larger unfair society, it impacts [our] ability to be a welcoming, thriving city. H A R R I S Having a relatively new mayor [Bill Peduto] and still-new police chief [Cameron McLay] represents a genuine opportunity to change and move ahead. Fred and I both had the privilege of serving on the committee Mayor Peduto set up to screen candidates. It was an unusual process: open hearings in each of six police zones. We heard the concerns of the public as we produced a short list of candidates for the mayor. I think Chief McLay is the right person at the right time. With that, we have gotten the attention of the Department of Justice and attorney general and institutions that have the power to help us leverage our efforts. So the stars are aligning. In effect, Pittsburgh is a kind of test site for a lot of new knowledge about policing. THIEMAN Pittsburgh was — maybe is — as much of a tinderbox
as Baltimore. That city had largely African American leadership, yet we saw how Baltimore exploded. So tensions are high everywhere. Chief McLay and the timing of his arrival have been an important pressure release value, though I don’t mean to suggest pressure is off yet.
“ That’s the idea: that fairness and the justice and dignity involved in every small citizen–police encounter matters.”
D AV I D H A R R I S
Professor of Law
H A R R I S The National Initiative will be a blueprint. It is a three-legged stool. Their models for procedural justice and implicit bias trained the entire police force in Chicago. When we sat down with them in late May, I asked how they will approach racial reconciliation: that’s a heavy lift. That is the least well-formed approach of the three. But these are very able people who have worked through these issues. T H I E M A N Police departments in general are militaristic in view. The chain of command means a lot: Tell them what to do, and they’ll do it. But when you start talking about racial reconciliation, implicit bias, and procedural justice, it comes down to judgments that police officers exercise on the street during confrontations. So you’re talking culture change, not training. That’s where things will become interesting. HARRIS It will be a challenge. We, like the rest of Pittsburgh, want to see actual change on the ground. That will be the result of this training taking root. T H I E M A N To
measure change, we need to take advantage of our new abilities to process information — taking it from data to knowledge. Police department cars are computerized. We may have actual video capabilities on what police are doing — if state law changes. We can track court activity
and arrests, typical intervention things, but also particular data with respect to individual police officers, like response time, interactions, relationships. Lastly, there’s a much better opportunity to poll the public now, to gauge how people perceive police and neighborhood safety. So between secondary data and primary data, you can really evaluate the effectiveness of policing today in ways that you couldn’t even 10 or 15 years ago. HAR R I S When the Initiative staff comes here in September, they’ll start a measurement of attitudes about policing, crime, and public safety, among the public and within the police department itself. It is the classic way of doing social science. THIEMAN Professor [John] Burkoff and I had the pleasure of writing the rules of operation for the Citizens Review Board. We gradated a whole range of violations and we were, year in and year out, amazed: Rudeness and abusiveness was the leading complaint. That gets to the procedural justice issue. And when you think about it, police are the front lines of a criminal justice system that at times takes a lot of credit for the dramatic decreases in criminal offenses over the last 20 years or so. But when you talk to experts to analyze that drop in crime, they estimate that between 10 to 25 percent is attributable to
“ It’s really important that a city like Pittsburgh has a progressive police department. Because if [it’s] archaic, it bodes even worse for the larger metropolitan area.” F R E D T H I E M A N Former U.S. attorney for Western Pennsylvania
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policing or incarceration. The other 75 percent is a whole range of things from people carrying less money to more private security to a general improvement in the economy in general. Yet we are incarcerating people at rates no country has ever seen. We have five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. In Allegheny County, violent and nonviolent crime has dropped anywhere from 30 to 60 percent over the last 20 years, but jail populations are up almost 60 percent. The leading reason why people are in jail today is money. They are unable to make bond. Close to 71 percent of people in jail are there on nonviolent offenses. So you have to keep those kinds of overall statistics in mind when police are going into the communities. They are often perceived as the front line in a system that is implicitly unfair to poor people in America today. H A R R I S Police have a role that is incredibly important in terms of their ability to use force, arrest people, and take them to jail. We need them to know that that implicit bias is there and can influence their behaviors.
In criminal justice, we’ve always acknowledged the existence of bias — the jury selection takes it for granted. So we acknowledge the existence of implicit and explicit bias when a case gets to trial, but we haven’t acknowledged it at the time of the arrest or original encounter. This is an effort to really take advantage of advances in psychology and behavioral sciences to put it into effect. Another point: When I was U.S. attorney, I was friends with the U.S. attorney for San Diego. Both areas were about four million people. He dealt with 17 chiefs of police, and I dealt with 750. There were 33 separate police departments that were contiguous to the city of Pittsburgh. That geography presents tremendous law enforcement challenges. So it’s really important that a city like Pittsburgh has a progressive police department. Because if [it’s] archaic, it bodes even worse for the larger metropolitan area. THIEMAN
H A R R I S I feel very lucky to be here now, working with Fred and some of the others here. It is a real opportunity for Pittsburgh’s police department to lead all those other jurisdictions in western Pennsylvania and for it to be a national leader in showing that change is possible, though very difficult.
F E AT U R E
GOING
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PA N D E M I C S A N D O N L I N E C O U R S E S
I N N O V E M B E R O F 2 0 1 4 , as the drumbeat of the Ebola pandemic grew louder across Africa, Elena Baylis recognized a pattern. In her work with postconflict justice issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone, the associate professor and director of Pitt Law’s Semester in D.C. program lived in cities teeming with refugees. In places like Kinshasa and Freetown, she witnessed firsthand the overlap between political chaos and public health. “In these places, if there is a long-standing conflict that has disrupted government services, there’s a high level of everyday illness and disease that prevents people from rebuilding. They’re weakened by famine and chronic diseases like malaria,” she explains. “Massive epidemics occur against that backdrop of general ill health.” Baylis had been eager to create a massive open enrollment course, or MOOC, for the law school. The unfolding crisis created
an opportunity. In “Epidemics, Pandemics and Outbreaks,” she and adjunct professor Elizabeth Bjerke Van Nostrand and two School of Medicine colleagues developed an overview of public health laws and policies that provide the framework for effective prevention, like quarantine laws, drug development policies, and bioterrorism and biodefense. In March 2015, as the four-part course debuted on Coursera, a measles epidemic flared across the U.S. from California. The MOOC registration exploded. More than 6,200 people participated in the free course worldwide. The online course was the first of several to be offered by Pitt Law. Health Care Compliance Online, an accelerated graduate-level program in health care compliance will launch beginning in January 2016 (see sidebar). Another, the Online LL.M. Program for Active Professionals, will follow in the fall of 2016.
s the drumbeat of the Ebola pandemic quickened across Africa last November, Elena Baylis recognized a pattern. In her work with postconflict justice issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone, the associate professor and director of Pitt Law’s Semester in D.C. program lived in cities teeming with refugees. In places like Kinshasa and Freetown, she witnessed firsthand the overlap between political chaos and public health. “In these places, if there is a long-standing conflict that has disrupted government services, there’s a high level of everyday illness and disease that prevents people from rebuilding. They’re weakened by famine and chronic diseases like malaria,” she explains. “Massive epidemics occur against that backdrop of general ill health.” Baylis had been eager to create a massive open enrollment course, or MOOC, for the law school. The unfolding crisis created an opportunity. In Epidemics, Pandemics and Outbreaks, she and adjunct professor Elizabeth Bjerke Van Nostrand and two School of Medicine colleagues developed an overview of public health laws and policies that provide the framework for effective prevention, like quarantine laws, drug development policies, and bioterrorism and biodefense. In March 2015, as the four-part course debuted on Coursera, a measles epidemic flared across the U.S. from California. The MOOC registration exploded. More than 6,200 people worldwide participated in the free course. Mary Crossley, professor of law and former dean of the law school, says the MOOC and proposed online offerings in health law and international law build on Pitt Law’s strengths. “The courses show that Pitt as a university, and the law school as a unit, is looking to take advantage of its brand and expertise to reach a larger audience. What makes it possible is Pitt Online.” Part of the University’s Center for Instructional Design and Distance Education, the program provides campuswide support for digitally delivered coursework. “The MOOC was an opportunity to amplify the work we’re doing in subjects where we have a lot of strengths,” says Elena Baylis. “Expanding into public health is a great opportunity.” Baylis opened the four-part MOOC with a factual overview on infectious diseases and medical responses. Amesh A. Adalja, infectious diseases expert in the University’s School of Medicine and UPMC, and Ryan Morhard, of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, contributed perspectives on biosecurity and disaster response and recovery. Van Nostrand, who holds faculty appointments at both Pitt
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“ The MOOC was an opportunity to amplify the work we’re doing in subjects where we have a lot of strengths. Expanding into public health is a great opportunity.” E L E N A B A Y L I S Associate Professor of Law
Law and the Graduate School of Public Health, addressed the law and policy shaping local emergency interventions in the United States. “State regulations vary so much. Look at the issue of quarantining individuals in New Jersey and Maine during the Ebola crisis,” she offers. With a grant from the Centers for Disease Control, Van Nostrand and Pitt Public Health colleagues recently analyzed a conflicting welter of policies. “We ended up comparing 12 states and federal regulations — 6,000 laws,” says Van Nostrand. “We created new methodology for network analysis and worked with our public health dynamics lab to create visualizations, with ability to compare policies across jurisdictions. We are the only institution that has applied network analysis to this issue.” Van Nostrand will continue to create courses on the intersection of public health and law as a result of a recent fellowship. During 2015, she was named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Public Health Law scholar. In spring 2015, she developed a practice-based law course that examined regulation and licensing of Pennsylvania’s tattoo parlors. Unlike neighboring New Jersey, the shops are currently exempt from any state standards. She hopes to create a similar course for spring 2016 on the legal and public health implications of the current heroin outbreak in Allegheny County. THE MOOC IS NOW AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AT COURSERA.ORG/LEARN/EPIDEMIC-PANDEMIC-OUTBREAK
ONLINE HEALTH CARE COMPLIANCE PROGRAM TO LAUNCH JANUARY 2016
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rompted by stepped-up compliance directives throughout the health care industry, Pitt Law has developed a streamlined online graduate program that meets the needs of working executives. Adjunct Professor Mary Nell Cummings is the director for the new Health Care Compliance Online program. A former assistant general counsel for GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, she has witnessed a boom in regulation resulting from the Affordable Care Act as well as growth in compliance jobs and the resulting demand for well-qualified managers inside and outside legal departments. “Right now, 29 percent of people in compliance posts have held them less than two years,” notes Cummings. “With changes in the law, compliance officers are moving to the senior executive level. “Our goal is to help organizations raise the bar for compliance, from reactive to strategic.” Each course in Health Care Compliance Online awards three graduate credits and is completed in eight weeks. Each year’s student cohort takes four core courses, which provide a strong foundation and clear understanding of health care compliance issues. After completing the core curriculum, students customize their final course by selecting topics from among eight different modules. Once the Pitt Law program is accredited by the Compliance Certification Board, students may sit for the health care certification compliance exam. The Health Care Compliance Association certification is a standard professional benchmark for hospital settings. Professor Mary Crossley is readying an introductory course for the graduate certificate program in health care compliance. Crossley was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Public Health Law Scholar in Residence in 2013 and continues to serve as a faculty mentor for the foundation’s Future of Public Health Law Education Faculty Fellowship Program. “There are a handful of law schools that have similar programs. Ours is distinctive in offering a level of specialized courses led by industry leaders,” Crossley notes. In addition to faculty experts in public health and ethics from across the country, faculty will include professionals from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and private practice experts in privacy and health care facility and provider compliance. FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF COURSES AND FACULTY, VISIT LAW.PITT.EDU/HCC
Professor Mary Crossley (left) will teach the intro course for Pitt Law’s Health Care Compliance Online graduate certificate program, directed by Mary Nell Cummings.
PROFILE
A DV I S I N G PI T TS BU RG H ’ S U R B A N FA R M I N D U S T R Y I S T H E B I G I D E A T H AT L A U N C H E D TWO JDs ON A NEW SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
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ood that’s fresh, organic, small-batch, and friendly likely comes from somewhere close — even the vacant lot down the street. Cultivating backyards and plots as small as a backyard garden, urban agribusinesses are social enterprises with high ideals, small budgets, and odd regulatory issues. How many backyard beehives are too many for city zoning? Where can goats graze? These unusual questions led Jackie Clifford and Marlene van Es to another: Why not create a new model of legal consulting for those start-ups that cultivate opportunities between for-profit and nonprofit? In answer, they created Trellis.
Clifford and van Es, who earned their JDs from Pitt Law in May 2015, shared a background in real-life agriculture work and a career plan for environmental law. But when their third-year environmental law clinic was rescheduled, they decided to create a law student group to tackle food policy issues within the city of Pittsburgh. Clifford and van Es recently researched issues for Grow Pittsburgh, an urban agriculture nonprofit that provides education and support to community gardens and businesses. “We get calls from people who don’t fit into existing frameworks,” explains Marisa Manheim, director of community projects. The group advised the city on its new regulations on agriculture. Manheim says the streamlined rules, approved in July, will catalyze a leap in entrepreneurial farming activity. “Trellis will be really useful,” she predicts.
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Response to the student group, dubbed Ground to Government, led Clifford and van Es to the realization that they had a viable business model for a future legal practice — plus a chance at some start-up cash. The law students enlisted Sarah Abboud, an MBA candidate at Pitt’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, to enter the cross-disciplinary Randall Family Big Idea competition. The annual contest sponsored by the University’s Innovation Institute encourages teams of entrepreneurs to present their products and business plans. As the women of Trellis pitched their start-up concept, judges listened intently. “This is huge,” one commented. Trellis was one of three Pitt Law entries in this year’s Big Idea, the only team to offer a service rather than a product, and one of only two all-female teams to participate in the
competition. With just under $10,000 in hand — from their Big Idea fourth-place prize, a Univer sity sustainability award, and contributions to an Indigogo online fundraiser — Clifford and van Es plan to launch Trellis upon being admitted to the bar this November. For the principals, Trellis is more than selfemployment. Both women see themselves as part of a community of entrepreneurs committed to creating a sustainable local food system, with a goal of affordable, healthy food for all. They will offer legal services in urban agriculture and food policy, using a subscription model rather than the standard fee-for-service. “The whole goal is to partner with the community,” stresses van Es. Clifford says the Trellis mission demands a new approach. “The current model of billable hours stunts innovation,” she argues. “We see that the health industry is now moving into subscription-based medical consultation — why not the legal field?” “Billable hours don’t make sense for their clientele — those folks have small budgets, and need predictability,” agrees Stephanie Dangel, executive director of Pitt Law’s Innovation Practice Institute. “Their idea of a subscription plan — and tailoring their service to their area of expertise — works. The subscription is a retainer agreement, where [clients] pay over time and are available for additional issues.” Dangel urged Clifford and van Es to test out their concept at the Big Idea competition and has mentored their business plan. The demand exists. In a recent paper, “Innovators, Esq.: Training the Next Generation of Lawyer Social Entrepreneurs,” published in UMKC Law Review, Dangel and coauthor Professor Michael Madison reported that 71 percent of social entrepreneurs in a recent poll said finding “the best legal structure for their ventures” was their single greatest challenge. Dangel believes young attorneys aren’t just finding a market among social entrepreneurs. She argues that, like their peers, they seek opportunities to express their values through their profession. Dangel dubs these Millennials “the TOMS Shoes generation,” referring to the popular retailer that started by donating a pair of shoes to a child in need for each one purchased. “More and more, students say, ‘I want to make money and I want to save the world — why can’t I do both?’ ” she says. “I believe passionately that this is a growth opportunity for law students. A legal education is a good foundation for becoming a social entrepreneur.”
WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS BUTLER STREET? Pittsburgh’s new urban agricultural zoning code ordinance, passed by City Council on July 7, 2015, and signed by Mayor Bill Peduto, simplifies paperwork and permits for very small farmers. In addition to allowing property owners to sell their produce through an on-site farm stand, it also addresses farm animals or residential property. Among the changes:
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number of beehives allowed per 2,000 square feet of residential land
number of chickens or ducks per 2,000 square feet of residential land
number of dehorned miniature goats per 2,000 square feet of residential land* * no single goats allowed for the mental health of the animal.
PROFILE
THE MAN WHO CHANGED 8 MILLION LIVES H A R R Y C O L M E R Y, CLASS OF 1916, AND HIS AMERICAN LEGION F O U G H T F O R PA S S AG E OF THE GI BILL
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Harry Colmery used this campaign poster when he ran for national commander of the American Legion. He was elected and served from 1936 to 1937. Image: Kansas State Historical Society
arry Colmery was a character out of a Frank Capra movie: a whip-smart North Braddock kid whose career took him from Pitt Law to the Plains to U.S. Supreme Court arguments. With a mission to provide veterans with a hand up instead of a handout, he became the father of the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944. The rest, as they say, is history. In retrospect, the impact of the GI Bill is clear: It transformed a generation of battle-toughened teenagers into an educated and prosperous middle class. But in 1943, as World War II dragged into its third year, the question of how the United States would compensate its soldiers for their service was a political powder keg. Colmery, a past national commander of the American Legion, drafted a concise outline of the legislation and fought tirelessly for its passage. Picture the scene: On a frosty December night in 1943, American Legion leaders gathered at Washington, D.C.’s Mayflower Hotel. Surveying a sea of legislative proposals addressing the forthcoming return of American GIs — several hundred were circulating in Congress — the men sought to frame a concise plan that could unite competing interests. Later that night, Colmery returned to his room and began to write. The result — drafted in longhand on Mayflower stationery — was a document that would eventually lift the fortunes of 8 million soldiers. Colmery was the obvious man for the job: bright, hard working, and deeply devoted to his community. He finished high school in the Braddock section of Pittsburgh in two years, graduating as valedictorian. At Oberlin College, where he played shortstop on the school’s baseball team, he earned the nickname “Hans,” a reference to the Pirates’ Honus Wagner. 24 | 25 P I T T
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While attending law school, he taught at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University). After graduating from Pitt Law in 1916 and serving stateside during World War I, he married and settled in Topeka, Kansas. There, he was a staunch member of every possible civic group, from Kiwanis to the Boy Scouts; meanwhile, he founded a successful insurance agency and built a reputation as a meticulous corporate attorney and formidable courtroom presence. He would successfully argue several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court on municipal ordinances on oil and gas storage and landowners’ rights to cancel a lease with an oil company. His granddaughter recalls Colmery as a man who never missed a day of work and never retired. “His family would pick him up at the office at 5 p.m. Christmas Eve, and at 8 a.m. on the 26th, he was back at the office,” says Mina Steen of Kansas City, Missouri. “My mom always said he was a very talented attorney, but he cared about the development of the country and how we treated those who protected it. He was shrewd, but what he did was serve.” During the 1930s, he handled a number of pro bono cases on behalf of disabled veterans and became a rising force in the American Legion, deeply enmeshed in the decade-long struggle to compensate veterans of the Great War. He served as national commander of the Legion in 1936.
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Members of the GI Bill Committee asked Harry Colmery to consolidate all of the proposals for postwar veterans’ readjustment into a single piece of legislation. He hand wrote his work on Mayflower Hotel stationery. These original copies reside in the American Legion’s Emil A. Blackmore Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana. Image: American Legion
Since 2010, 20 veterans have used their GI Bill benefits to earn degrees from Pitt Law: 18 JDs and two Master of Studies in Law. U N I V E R SIT Y OF PIT TSBU RGH OFF ICE OF V ET E R A NS A FFA IR S
Nearly two decades after World War I, resentment over the government’s callous treatment of its returning soldiers still festered. Army cavalry, brandishing bayonets, were called into the streets of Washington in 1932 to disrupt the protests of the Bonus Army. Angry at a payment structure that delayed compensation until 20-year bonds matured, 20,000 men had marched on the capital to demand their compensation. They were a potent reminder that restive, unemployed veterans could threaten the country’s political stability. The prospect of 16 million soldiers mustering out of the armed forces in the mid ’40s galvanized a wave of Congressional proposals, from cash payments to job training. Attempts to define who would be eligible and for what reflected the prejudices of the era. An early proposal to limit benefits to those with honorable discharges discriminated against African American servicemen, who had disproportionate rates of dishonorable dismissals. The leaders of the nation’s most elite colleges, including James Conant of Harvard, dismissed the idea of higher education for all, saying proposals for tuition assistance failed to “distinguish between those who can profit most by advanced education and those who cannot.” Colmery took a two-year leave from his Topeka practice to live at The Mayflower and promote the American Legion’s plan. His draft proposal was broad, generous, and simple. It called for four years of education benefits, low-interest home mortgages with no down payments, and a year of unemployment benefits for all those with 120 days of active military service. Critics protested that a year of unemployment benefits would turn soldiers into slackers. “The American Legion has not lost faith in the veterans,” Colmery replied. (In fact, the average GI used only 18 weeks of unemployment.) The bill sped through Congress and reached a conference committee in early June 1944. There, it encountered the implacable opposition of Rep. John Elliott Rankin of Tupelo, Mississippi. Edward Humes, author of Over Here: How America’s GI Bill Transformed the American Dream, paints a vivid picture of Rankin, the chair of the House Committee on World War Veterans Legislation: “a dyed in the wool racist, AntiSemitic, Red-baiting, New-Deal-bashing future Dixiecrat.” Time magazine described him as “an angry mosquito.”
Rankin preferred a less liberal version of the bill the conference committee considered, and maneuvered to attempt its defeat. The tie-breaking vote belonged to Democrat John Gibson. Though he telephoned Rankin from Georgia with instructions to cast his vote as an aye, Rankin declined to do so. The bill was deadlocked. Its frantic supporters reached Gibson at home, begging him to return to the Capitol. He drove through a midnight thunderstorm to a distant airfield to fly back to Washington. There, the American Legion had chartered an airplane to whisk him north. The bill passed by one vote. President Franklin Roosevelt signed it on June 22, 1944. Over the next 12 years, the bill’s social and economic impact was dramatic. By 1956, the rate of homeownership was 60 percent, compared to prewar levels of 44 percent, as the home construction industry boomed. Eight million servicemen and women received job training or bachelor’s degrees, producing doctors, engineers, and teachers that transformed the U.S. workforce. The GI Bill also created the veterans’ hospital system, and the one in Topeka was, fittingly, named for Colmery. He returned to Topeka and continued his legal career. “Although he accomplished a tremendous amount and left a wonderful legacy, he was an ordinary man. He did not come from wealth or paved opportunity,” says Steen. “He used his gifts of intelligence, speaking, and building relationships to develop himself for service and for entrepreneurship.” He received honors from many foreign nations and died at age 89 while attending the American Legion’s 1979 convention. When Congress passed a resolution to posthumously award Colmery the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002, it honored a distinguished career. But despite that action — and a plaque honoring Colmery at The Mayflower’s Room 501 — no president has signed the resolution. To this day, Colmery’s honor remains in limbo. One veteran pushing for a presidential signature is former U.S. Senate majority leader Bob Dole. Steen says the Kansas Republican, now 92, has had two personal letters delivered to President Obama this year and continues to champion Colmery’s cause. To sign an online petition, visit awardforfreedom.com
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F A C U LT Y
FACULTY T H E F O L L OW I N G I S A S A M P L I N G O F P R O F E S S I O N A L A C T I V I T I E S C O N D U C T E D B Y P I T T L AW F A C U LT Y O V E R T H E P A S T Y E A R .
“ Students go bleary-eyed reading thick books full of outlines on tested subjects and watching professors summarize a whole field of law in a few lengthy lectures. They madly memorize everything from the Rule Against Perpetuities to the elements of res ipsa loquitur, only to forget most of it shortly after the exam ends.” BEN BRATMAN, associate professor of legal writing, writing in the February 25 edition of The Wall Street Journal, flunked proposed changes to the Multistate Bar Exam. Bratman also was recently featured in Scholastica’s blog on evaluating bar exam reforms.
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n a landmark settlement September 1, the state of California agreed to end unlimited solitary confinement for most prison inmates. The agreement was a major victory in a high-profile case concerning the indeterminate solitary confinement of Pelican Bay State Prison inmates. The lead attorney in the case Ashker v. Governor of California is Pitt Law Professor Jules Lobel, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “This brings California in line with more modern national prison practices,” Lobel told The New York Times. Citing questions from President Barack Obama and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy about its harmful consequences, Lobel told NPR’s All Things Considered that public opinion might be souring on solitary confinement.
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NEW FACULTY With expertise ranging from international criminal law to children’s health and welfare to the environment, four scholars join the Pitt Law faculty this fall. joins the Pitt Law faculty as a clinical assistant professor of law and director of the Health Law Clinic. Most recently she was a faculty member at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) David A. Clarke School of Law. She served from 2008 to 2013 as an attorney for the Children’s Law Center in Washington, D.C., and holds a JD from Case Western Reserve University and an LLM from UDC.
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TOMAR BROWN
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CHAZ ARNETT
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GRANT MACINTYRE, JD ’08 , returns to Pitt Law as a clinical
joins the faculty as a visiting assistant professor of law, teaching courses in education law and juvenile justice. He also will develop a proposed partnership between Pitt Law and the Education Law Center to establish an Education Law Practicum, which will involve students in issues regarding juvenile justice and school disciplinary proceedings. Arnett has served as a trial attorney with the Juvenile Division of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender and as a staff attorney with the Advancement Project in Washington, D.C., where he supervised national programs aimed at combatting the school-to-prison pipeline.
assistant professor and director of the Environmental Law Clinic. He served as attorney advisor and special assistant to the general counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 2008 to 2012. From 2012 to 2015, he concentrated in environmental law in private practice at Bracewell & Giuliani in Washington, D.C. A specialist in transitional and postconflict justice, Assistant Professor MATIANGAI SIRLEAF previously was a faculty member at the University of Baltimore and University of Pennsylvania. Her international experience includes a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Ghana and a clerkship in South Africa’s Constitutional Court.
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HONORS Five Pitt Law faculty have been recognized for their outstanding character, scholarship, and service by national and international groups.
BEN BRATMAN
HARRY J. GRUENER
DAVID A. HARRIS
BERNARD J. HIBBITTS
ANTHONY C. INFANTI
Associate Professor
Clinical Associate Professor
Professor
Eric W. Springer Professionalism Award, W. Edward Sell American Inn of Court
Eric Turner Memorial Award, Pennsylvania Bar Association
Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Professor
Senior Associate Dean and Professor
2014–15 Jefferson Award for Public Service
John D. Lawson Award, Canadian American Bar Association
Fellow, American College of Tax Counsel
F A C U LT Y
“ People in their 50s and 60s frequently say: ‘I don’t want to be in that situation. I don’t want to put my family in that situation.’ And people will increasingly voice those views to others, sometimes in a formal way through advance directives.” ALAN MEISEL, professor of law and psychiatry, commenting in a January 20th New York Times article on the complexities of directives made while an individual is of sound mind but implemented when he or she is not.
Over the past four decades, Pitt Law’s David Garrow has earned a reputation as the nation’s foremost interpreter of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This year’s debut of the biopic Selma focused more attention on Garrow’s Pulitzer Prize-winning scholarship, including his Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which won the 1987 prize for biography. Clarifying the real-life events depicted in the drama, Garrow contributed analysis to national news organizations including the CBS Morning News, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, MSNBC, and National Public Radio.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 last term in favor of UPS driver Peggy Young. The plaintiff claimed the company violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) when it denied her a workplace accommodation commonly made for other employees with similar physical restrictions. The action vacated an earlier judgment for UPS and sent the case back to lower courts and is — mostly — a victory, says Pitt Law Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Professor Deborah Brake. With Professor Joanna Grossman of Hofstra Law School, Brake coauthored an amicus brief filed last September in support of Young’s position that urged the Court to hear arguments in Young v. UPS. Justice Anthony Kennedy cited the brief in his dissenting opinion. Brake and Grossman also coauthored an analysis of the opinion for Justia.com’s Verdict section, in which they likened the Court’s ruling to “splitting the baby” because it rejects the interpretations of the PDA offered by both parties and instead offers its own. 30 | 31 P I T T
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he University of Pittsburgh Law Review has published its most recent symposium issue with scholars’ contributions to last year’s Challenging Authority: A Symposium Honoring Derrick Bell. The issue features an introduction by Pitt Law Assistant Professor Jasmine Gonzales Rose and articles from Pitt Law professors George Taylor and Pat K. Chew, former Pitt Law professors (now with the University of Alabama School of Law) Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, and from Patience Crowder, Stacey Marlise Gahagan, Alfred L. Brophy, Juan Perea, SpearIt, and Montré Carodine. Read the full proceedings at lawreview.law.pitt.edu/ ojs/index.php/lawreview/issue/view/46.
Pat Chew’s landmark 2008 study (with Carnegie Mellon University’s Robert Kelly) on the correlation between judges’ race and outcomes for defendants has been cited numerous times in the United States. On May 11, the London-based daily newspaper The Guardian included a synopsis of the research in an in-depth examination of the lack of diversity in the U.S. legal community. Chew and Kelly analyzed more than 400 federal cases representing workplace racial harassment jurisprudence over a 20-year period and found that judges’ race significantly affects outcomes in these cases.
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or over a decade, Professor David Harris has written and debated the twin topics of community policing and racial profiling. The recent tragic incidents in many U.S. cities, most notably Ferguson, Missouri; Cleveland, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; and North Charleston, South Carolina, have propelled Harris into a role as a sought-after media expert. Harris is the author of Good Cops: The Case for Preventive Policing (The New Press, 2005) and Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work (The New Press, 2002). He has appeared on The Today Show, Dateline NBC, National Public Radio, and has been interviewed by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times, among many others. His short, blunt prescription on how to solve the national crisis, headlined “Five Things Obama Must Do Now About Baltimore,” was widely shared after its April 29 publication on Politico. Here, he tells what it’s like to provide gravitas in the media circus. HOW DO YOU COMBINE ACCOMMODATING THE 24/7 NEWS CYCLE AND AN ALREADY-FULL SCHEDULE?
My issues have often been part of the public discussion for the last 15 years, and they have only grown more prominent in our dialogue about our country and who we are in the last year. These issues often become highly politicized and are the subject of a lot of emotional, fact-free analysis. If my expertise can help the public understand these things, I want that opportunity. So I figure out ways to take advantage of the chances I have — I answer the calls and take the time. There’s no question that it takes time away from other things, but I’m fast enough and experienced enough with it that I can still take care of business. IS IT FRUSTRATING TO HAVE TO CONVEY YOUR IDEAS IN SHORT SOUND BITES AND SIMPLIFIED LANGUAGE?
Any time you speak or teach, you have to think of your students or audience; you always adjust your approach. Speaking to a journalist or doing a live interview, I see the task as an especially challenging teaching opportunity: How do you convey what’s most important about a topic or issue without dumbing it down and oversimplifying?
That’s the difficulty, and I know that a lot of us in the academic world don’t like to do it. We feel that nuance and the accuracy we want to convey is lost. I certainly get that. But for me, the issues I have the privilege to work on are too important to not at least try to give the public a clear, understandable, and meaningful interpretation of events or answer to questions. WHAT TIPS DO YOU HAVE FOR MEDIA NOVICES ON EFFECTIVELY GETTING YOUR POINT ACROSS?
First, no one should do it unless they feel comfortable with it. Second, be prepared for the four or five questions you are most likely to get. For almost any newspaper, internet, radio, or television story, the four or five questions you are most likely to get should be obvious to you as an expert. If you can’t guess what they will be, beg off. Third, be prepared with 30-second answers to each of those questions. If you can’t do that, pass. If you can, just remember that you aren’t talking to an academic conference or to your classes. Talk about the core of the issue, and what it means and implies.
F A C U LT Y
WRITTEN & SPOKEN & PRESENTED Scholarly Publications in Top Law Journals JESSIE ALLEN ,
Empirical Doctrine, 66 Case W. Res. L. Rev. ____ (forthcoming 2015). ELENA BAYLIS ,
What Internationals Know: Promoting the Effectiveness of Post-Conflict Justice Initiatives, 14 Wash. U. Global Stud. L. Rev. ____ (forthcoming 2015). DEBORAH BRAKE ,
Tortifying Retaliation: Protected Activity at the Intersection of Fault, Duty, and Proximate Cause, 75 Oh. St. L. J. 1371 (2014). DEBORAH BRAKE ,
On Not ‘Having it Both Ways’ and Still Losing: Reflections on Fifty Years of Pregnancy Litigation Under Title VII, 95 B.U. L. Rev. 995 (2015). RONALD A. BRAND,
Understanding Judgments Recognition, 40 N.C. J. Int’l L. & Com. Reg. 877 (2015). DOUGLAS BRANSON ,
A Return to OldTime Religion? The Glass-Steagall Act, the Volcker Rule, Limits on Proprietary Trading, and Sustainability, 11 U. St. Thomas L.J. ____ (forthcoming).
HAIDER ALA HAMOUDI ,
The Political Codification of Islamic Law: A Closer Look at the Draft Shi’i Personal Status Code of Iraq, 32 Ariz. J. Int’l & Comp. L. ____ (forthcoming 2015). The House of Windsor: Accentuating the Heteronormativity in the Tax Incentives for Procreation, 89 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1185 (2014).
“Obligations III: Cultural Immersion, Difference, and Categories in U.S. Comparative Law,” in Broekman JM, Backer LC, eds., Signs In Law — A Source Book: The Semiotics of Law in Legal Education, Springer, 2015.
ANTHONY INFANTI ,
DAVID GARROW,
ANTHONY INFANTI ,
Big (Gay) Love: Has the IRS Legalized Polygamy? 93 N.C. L. Rev. Add. 1 (2014). ANTHONY INFANTI ,
The Moonscape of Tax Equality: Windsor and Beyond, 108 NW. U. L. Rev. 1115 (2014). with M. Chapman, Bridging the Gap Between Unmet Legal Needs and an Oversupply of Lawyers: Creating Neighborhood Law Offices: The Philadelphia Experiment, 22 VA J. Soc. Pol’y & L. 72 (2014). JULES LOBEL
GEORGE TAYLOR ,
The Object of Diversity, 75 U. Pitt L. Rev. 652 (2014). DAVID THAW,
Enlightened Regulatory Capture, 89 Wash. U. L. Rev. 331 (2014).
The Thirteenth Amendment and Constitutional Reform, 38 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 583 (2015).
with C. Borchert and F. Pinguelo, Reasonable Expectations of Privacy Settings: Contemplating the Stored Communications Act Through the Prism of Social Media, 13 Duke L. & Tech. Rev. 36 (2015).
PAT CHEW,
DAVID THAW,
WILLIAM M. CARTER JR. ,
Challenging Authority, 75 U. Pitt L. Rev. 429 (2014). MARY CROSSLEY,
Health and Taxes: Hospitals, Community Health, and the IRS, 16 Yale J. Health Pol’y L. & Ethics ____ (forthcoming 2016). LAWRENCE FROLIK ,
Private LongTerm Care Insurance: Not the Solution for the High Cost of Long-Term Care for the Elderly, 23 Elder L. J. ____ (forthcoming 2015). JASMINE B. GONZALES ROSE ,
Introduction, Challenging Authority: A Symposium in Honor of Derrick Bell, 75 U. Pitt L. Rev. 429 (2014).
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Books and Book Chapters Published by Leading Presses
DAVID THAW,
Data Breach (Regulatory) Effects, 2015 Cardozo L. Rev. De Novo 151 (2015). SHEILA I. VELEZ MARTINEZ ,
VIVIAN CURRAN ,
Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (paperback edition), Yale University Press, 2015. HAIDER ALA HAMOUDI ,
“Juristic and Legislative Rulemaking: A History of the Personal Status Code of Iraq,” in Wing A, Kassim H, eds., Family Law and Gender in the Modern Middle East and North Africa, Cambridge University Press, 2015 (accepted). HAIDER ALA HAMOUDI ,
with W.H. Al-Sharaa, and A. Al-Dahhan, “The Resolution of Disputes in State and Tribal Law in the South of Iraq: Toward a Cooperative Model of Pluralism,” in Helfand MA, ed., Negotiating State and Non-State Law: Challenges of Global and Local Pluralism, Cambridge University Press, 2015 (in press). DAVID HARRIS ,
“The Dangers of Racialized Perception and Thinking by Law Enforcement,” in Johnson D, Warren PY, and Ferrell A, eds., Deadly Injustice: Trayvon Martin, Race, and The Criminal Justice System, NYU Press, 2015 (in press).
Towards an Outcrit Pedagogy of Anti-Subordination in the Classroom 90 Chicago-Kent L. Rev. 589 (2015).
ANTHONY INFANTI ,
RHONDA WASSERMAN ,
ANTHONY INFANTI ,
Future Claimants and the Quest for Global Peace, 64 Emory L. J. 531 (2014). Cy Pres in Class Action Settlements, 88 S. Cal. L. Rev. 97 (2014). RHONDA WASSERMAN
ed., Controversies in Tax Law: A Matter of Perspective, Ashgate Publishing, 2015. “Of Families and Corporations: Erasing the Public–Private Divide in Tax Reform Debates,” in Infanti AC, ed., Controversies in Tax Law: A Matter of Perspective, Ashgate Publishing, 2015.
Presentations Given at Top Ranked Law Schools JESSIE ALLEN ,
Doctrine, Ritual, and Impartiality. Presented at: 18th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and Humanities; Georgetown University Law Centre; March 2015. KEVIN ASHLEY,
with Susanna Leers, Computer-Supported Peer Review in a Law School Context. Presented at: Cali Conference for Law School Computing; Harvard Law School; June 2014. DEBORAH BRAKE ,
Health, Safety, and Gender: Title IX as a Source of Protection for Student-Athletes. Presented at: Labor, Entertainment, & Sports: An Intersectional and Interdisciplinary Inquiry; UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment; April 2015. RONALD BRAND,
Comments. Presented at: When U.S. Treaty Powers and State Law Collide — The Controversy Over Implementing the 2005 Hague Convention; NYU School of Law Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration, and Commercial Law; November 2014. PAT CHEW,
Gender, Arbitration, and Sex Discrimination. Presented at: University of Pennsylvania Law School as part of a CLE program on updates on the work of feminist legal scholars; March 2015. DAVID GARROW,
The Past and Future of Disparate Impact. Presented at: A panel commemorating the post humous publication of Robert Belton’s The Crusade for Equality in the Workplace; Vanderbilt Law School; September 2014. DAVID HARRIS ,
Perspective on Partnerships Between Prosecutors and Police. Presented at: Symposium on Justice, Race, and Persecution; Vera Institute of Justice, Harvard Law School; November 2014.
ANTHONY INFANTI ,
The House of Windsor: Accentuating the Heteronormativity in the Tax Incentives for Procreation. Presented at: 2014 Tax Symposium; University of Washington; October 2014. ANTHONY INFANTI ,
Presumptuous Selfishness: The ‘Other’ in Tax Law incubator session. Presented at: 18th Annual Critical Tax Conference; Northwestern University School of Law; April 2015. JULES LOBEL ,
Prolonged Solitary Confinement and the Constitution. Presented at: UCLA School of Law; November 2014. MICHAEL MADISON ,
Governing Knowledge Commons. Presented at: Innovation Law Beyond IP 2 Conference, Yale Law School; March 2015. DAVID THAW,
Cybersecurity Workshop. Presented at: National Science Foundation/Berkeley Center for Law and Technology Working Group on Cybersecurity Law Reform; University of California, Berkeley, School of Law; April 2015. DAVID THAW,
Comparing Management-based Regulation and Prescriptive Legislation: How to Improve Information Security Through Regulation. Presented at: Cyberscholars Workshop, Columbia University; March 2015.
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Pitt Law alumni turned out for organized events ranging in scope, size, and location during 2014–15. Above is a sampling of photos from the following events: Alumni Reunion Weekend, Hail To An Attitude of Gratitude Day, the Law Fellows Reception and Dinner, and Golden Gavel Society Luncheon. VIEW MORE PHOTOS AT FLICKR.COM/PITTLAW
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has been designated a member emeritus of the Collaborative Law Association of Southwestern Pennsylvania (CLASP). Within a few short years of taking the bench in the late 1970s, Kaplan became a tireless advocate for the use of mediation to resolve divorce-related disputes, especially those affecting children. He was also one of the first members of CLASP, supporting and giving credibility to the fledgling organization with his membership. LAWRENCE W. KAPLAN, ’53,
received the Philip Werner Amram Award at the annual Allegheny County Bench-Bar Conference. The award recognizes individuals who personify professional excellence and commitment to the ideals of the Allegheny County Bar Association, as well as to the betterment of the greater community. VINCENT J. GROGAN, ’60,
was honored with the 2014 Allegheny County Bar Association Professionalism Award during the Civil Litigation Section’s annual Luncheon With The Judges. An attorney at Meyer Darragh Buckler Bebenek & Eck for more than 35 years, Anderson specializes in civil trial litigation with experience in commercial, construction, personal injury, transportation, and aviation litigation. ERIC ANDERSON, ’73,
received the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Fellow Award, the premier alumni honor awarded by the University that recognizes extraordinary records of professional achievement and community service. Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher bestowed the award on Blum — who is chair-elect of Pitt’s Board of Trustees and retired executive vice president and director of community affairs for PNC Bank — during the University’s Alumni Awards Gala in May. A 2008 Pitt Law Distinguished Alumnus, she also received the University’s 225th Anniversary Medallion in 2012. EVA TANSKY BLUM, ’73,
has been named chairman of the Board at Meritas, a global alliance of independent business law firms. Unkovic is a partner and international transactional lawyer at Pittsburgh-based law firm Meyer, Unkovic & Scott LLP. He will serve a two-year term. DENNIS UNKOVIC, ’73,
STUART “STU” W. BENSON, ’75,
received the 2015 Volunteer Excellence Award from the Pitt Alumni Association. Since graduating, Benson, a partner with the firm Dapper, Baldasare, Benson, Behling & Kane, PC, has been lauded and honored for his commit ment to and support of the University, Pitt Alumni Association, School of Law, and Pitt Department of Athletics. He has held leadership roles on the Pitt Alumni Association Board of Directors and its various committees as well as numerous volunteer positions on behalf of Pitt Law, having served as president, vice president, and secretary of the Pitt Law Board of Governors among other positions. has joined Ray, Winton & Kelley PLLC in the Charleston, West Virginia, offices and will concentrate on family law, employment law, and alternative dispute resolution as a mediator as well as an arbitrator. MICHAEL KELLY, ’76,
MARILYN JEAN HORAN, ’79 N OMIN ATE D TO TH E FE D E RAL BE N CH FOR TH E WE S TE RN D IS TRICT OF PE N N S YLVAN IA
Marilyn Jean Horan, JD ’79, a Butler County Common Pleas judge, was nominated by President Barack Obama to the federal bench for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Horan has been a Butler County judge since 1996. The first female judge in Butler County history, she serves in the court’s civil division. From 1979 to 1996, she worked at the law firm of Murrin, Taylor, Flach and Horan, where she rose to partner in 1982. She received her BA from Penn State University in 1976. Photo: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
a shareholder at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, received the organization’s 2014 Allied Professional of the Year Award, which recognizes professionals who have a commitment to philanthropy and promote philanthropy through their profession. Boyle regularly represented hospitals, health systems, home health agencies, skilled nursing facilities, and intermediate care facilities for developmentally disabled people in administrative and corporate tax issues. THOMAS E. BOYLE, ’77,
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has joined Weiss Burkardt Kramer LLC as of council. In the past, he focused on real estate tax appeals for Pittsburgh Public Schools as well as litigation and counseling services for the Pittsburgh Housing Authority. CLAUDE C. COUNCIL JR., ’79,
has been inducted as a fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. She is a labor and employ ment arbitrator and mediator and is a member of the American Arbitration Association National Labor Panel. MARY THERESA METZLER, ’79,
of the law firm of Silberblatt Mermelstein PC in Pittsburgh, has begun a three-year term on the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA) Board of Governors, representing Allegheny County lawyers. Silberblatt is a member of the PBA House of Delegates and is chair of the PBA Professional Liability Committee. He serves on the Board of Directors and the audit committee of the Pennsylvania Bar Foundation, the charitable affiliate of the PBA. JAY N. SILBERBLATT, ’80,
a Weber Gallagher partner and member of the firm’s Board of Directors, has been elected as a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel Board of Directors. DAVID ROSENBERG, ’82,
justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, has been elected as a member of the American Law Institute, where she will have an influential role in publishing restatements of the law and modeling statutes and principles that are prominent in courts, legislatures, legal scholarship, and education. DEBRA TODD, ’82,
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has been named Best Professor by the Jackson Free Press for his work at the Mississippi College School of Law. He has received many awards, including the Award for Teaching Excellence, and he has authored and edited 15 volumes on Mississippi law. JEFFREY JACKSON, ’83,
was named a 2014 University of Pittsburgh Legacy Laureate in recognition of his outstanding professional and personal accomplishments. Jordan has been a strong supporter of Pitt Law and the Reed Smith Energy Innovation Fund. He was a recipient of the University’s 225th Anniversary Medallion. GREG JORDAN, ’84,
has joined Blank Rome LLP as an associate in the Corporate, M&A, and Securities Group through the OnRamp Fellowship program, a program for women lawyers reentering the legal profession. Herman focuses her practice in general business and corporate matters. KATHY E. HERMAN, ’86,
currently an adjunct professor at Pitt Law and partner in the Pittsburgh law offices of Dinsmore & Shohl LLP, has been elected to represent Pennsylvania and New Jersey on the American Bar Association’s Board of Governors. Lieber also was awarded the Pennsylvania Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession Anne X. Alpern Award, given annually to a female lawyer or judge who demonstrates excellence in the legal profession and who makes a significant professional impact on women in the law. PENINA A. LIEBER, ’86,
LORI E. MCMASTER, ’86, director of
the Office of Professional and Career Development at Pitt Law, received the 2015 Honorable Carol Los Mansmann Helping Hand Award from the Allegheny County Bar Association (ACBA) Women in the Law Division. The award honors the legacy of Mansmann — the first woman appointed to the federal bench in Pittsburgh and the youngest woman to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court — and recognizes local individuals who have made extraordinary efforts to assist and mentor women in the legal profession. She serves on the ACBA Gender Equality Committee and Board of Governors. a sole practitioner attorney/mediator/collaborative law peacemaker at the Law & Mediation Office of Jeffrey L. Pollock, Esq. since 1989, was recently elected to a two-year term as president of Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Pittsburgh chapter. ZOA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering deeper relationships between the United States and Israel and to fighting anti-Semitism. JEFF POLLOCK, ’87,
has been named president-elect of the Federal Bar Association, Utah chapter, where she will be an advocate on behalf of the federal courts. PEGGY HUNT, ’88,
HARRY F. KUNSELMAN, ’89,
shareholder of the law firm of Strassburger McKenna Gutnick & Gefsky, has authored Pennsylvania Commercial Litigation 2nd Edition (The Legal Intelligencer, 2015), an important resource for business and transactional attorneys as well as business owners.
TAMMY SINGLETON-ENGLISH, ’90,
was reappointed for an additional two-year term as a Council Board Member for the Solo and Small Firm Practitioners Section of the Allegheny County Bar Association. She also was elected chair. returned to McGuireWoods as a partner in the Commercial Litigation Department. He previously worked at GNC, where he oversaw all company legal affairs, including litigation, legal matters relating to international expansion, domestic franchising, and regulatory compliance matters. GERALD STUBENHOFER, ’94,
JOHN G. BAKER, ’97 NO M INATED TO BE C H I E F DEFE N S E C OUN S EL AT TH E G UA NTÁ NA M O BAY WAR C OURT, P ROM OTE D TO BR IGA D IER GEN ER A L
John G. Baker, JD ’97, was nominated on June 4 by President Barack Obama to be chief defense counsel at the Guantánamo Bay war court as well as to a promotion to brigadier general. The Pentagon notified Congress of the proposed appointment, and if confirmed, Baker will be one of the highestranked Pitt Law alumni in the U.S. military. Baker currently serves as the Marine Corps deputy director, Judge Advocate Division, for military justice and community development. In his role, he is also the Marine Corps representative to the Department of Defense’s Joint Service Committee on Military Justice. Previously, he was chief defense counsel of the Marine Corps as well as regional defense counsel for the Eastern Region. Photo: U.S. Marine Corps
has joined McGuireWoods’ mergers and acquisitions practice as a partner. She has more than 18 years of experience representing public and private companies in a variety of corporate and securities matters. HANNAH T. FRANK, ’96,
has been elected partner at Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti LLP. A member in the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group, Lazzara works on all areas of intellectual property, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. MICHAEL D. LAZZARA, ’96,
is of counsel in the Pittsburgh office of Strassburger McKenna Gutnick & Gefsky, where her practice focuses on working with start-ups and mature companies on corporate and real estate transactions as well as business owners on business succession and estate planning matters. JULIE I. KLINE, ’97,
has been elected as a new member to the Detroit, Michigan, office of Dykema, and will work in the government policy and practice group. STEVEN C. LIEDEL, ’98,
won the 2014 Prosecutor of the Year Award at the District Attorney’s Awards ceremony for Chester County, Pa., where she is head of the Child Abuse Unit. DEBORAH RYAN, ’98,
has rejoined Florida law firm Broad and Cassel as managing partner. Sickles will manage the day-to-day operations of the Tampa office and be a member of the firm’s Commercial Litigation Practice Group. From 2000 to 2009, Sickles played an integral role in growing Broad and Cassel’s automotive industry team, quickly rising to achieve partnership and even serving as the team’s cochair at one point. ROBERT SICKLES, ’98,
has joined the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine as chief advancement officer. Most recently, Collins served as vice president for institutional advancement at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. CARRIE COLLINS, ’99,
has started a position in the Office of Investor Education and Advocacy for the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. TOM MANGANELLO, ’99,
a partner of Weiss Burkardt Kramer, LLC, presented at the Pennsylvania School Board Association’s 2015 School Solicitors Symposium, discussing land banks in relation to helping or harming school districts’ interests. Burkardt is well known for presenting seminars at various municipal and school district associations with the Pennsylvania Bar Institute and the Local Government Academy. M. JANET BURKARDT, ’00,
has joined Blank Rome LLP as an associate in the Corporate Litigation Group, and will work to expand the firm’s regional and national platforms and practice capabilities. JULIA M. TEDJESKE, ’00,
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recently was elected as a member of the steering committee of the Estates, Trusts, and Probate Section of the District of Columbia Bar Association. ELI J. GUITERMAN, ’02,
received the John R. Miller Civility Award from the judges of the Centre County Court of Common Pleas in recognition of his “continuing commitment to the highest ideals of civility, collegiality, and candor and his unswerving dedication to client needs while never losing sight of the highest professional standards.” CASEY MCCLAIN, ’02,
has joined the Savannah, Georgia., office of Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP. Bowen will provide an additional experienced resource for health care providers in dealing with complex corporate, regulatory, compliance issues. SHAYNA ANSLEY BOWEN, ’03,
STEPHEN W. GROSH, ’03, started the law
firm of Stephen W. Grosh Law Offices in Lancaster, Pa., and will focus his practice in the areas of criminal defense, family law, estate planning, and civil litigation. He also was named a trustee of the Heart of Lancaster Hospital and was elected president of AMBUCS, a nationally known nonprofit service group. has been appointed chair of Stradley Ronon’s diversity committee, which focuses on the recruitment and retention of diverse attorneys and staff. Under Seaman’s leadership, the diversity committee, along with the firm’s hiring committee, created Stradley’s Summer Success Program, a two-part initiative designed to provide law students from underrepresented groups with the tools they need to be successful in interviews and as summer associates. Additionally, he was named by The Legal Intelligencer as one of the 2015 Diverse Attorneys of the Year. BRIAN SEAMAN, ’03,
associate at Fitzpatrick Lentz & Bubba PC, has been named to Lehigh Valley Business’ Forty under 40 list. The awards program recognizes and celebrates 40 of the Greater Lehigh Valley’s most accomplished businesspeople under the age of 40. Shields focuses her practice on all types of health care litigation, including risk management, malpractice, medical staff matters, hospital fair hearings, and health care business disputes. MARALEEN D. SHIELDS, ’03,
an attorney in the Pittsburgh family law firm of Gentile, Horoho & Avalli, PC will lead the firm’s Collaborative Law Practice Group. Myers has received certification from the Collaborative Law Association of Southwestern Pennsylvania (CLASP) and has also completed formal training in mediation to enable her to negotiate family law cases for clients without going to court. REBECCA MYERS, ’04,
was appointed associate dean for academic affairs and faculty development at the Mississippi College School of Law, where he has been on the faculty since 2009. JOHNATHAN WILL, ’04,
was elected chair of the Women in the Law Division of the Allegheny County Bar Association. This nearly 2,000-member division is responsible for creating and sponsoring programs to educate the members of the bar and judiciary as to the character and impact of barriers that deny women the opportunity to achieve full integration and equal participation in the work, responsibilities, and rewards of the legal profession. DANIELLE L. DIETRICH, ’05,
has been made partner at Norton Rose Fulbright. He centers his practice on health care services matters, pharmaceutical and medical device disputes, and clinical integration initiatives, representing clients on regulatory and transactional matters. MARK FACCENDA, ’05,
GRETCHEN E. MOORE, ’05,
a shareholder with Strassburger, McKenna, Gutnick & Gefsky, was recently elected secretary of the Board of Directors of the Pittsburgh Chapter of Women in eDiscovery, “a pioneering organization that primarily provides educational opportunities regarding technology in the legal industry to its members.” has been promoted to partner at Reed Smith LLP in the firm’s Pittsburgh office. Nordick is a member of the firm’s Financial Industry Group. She has represented publicly traded corporations and other entities, as borrowers, and private equity funds, as sponsors, in a wide variety of financing, acquisition, and restructuring transactions. KATHRYN NORDICK, ’05,
has been named partner at Williams Coulson Johnson Lloyd Parker & Tedesco, LLC. His practice is focused on tax planning and tax controversy matters. STEPHEN J. PIEKLIK, ’05,
has been elevated to partner at Fox Rothschild LLP in Pittsburgh. Corbin practices corporate law, employee pension and welfare benefits, executive compensation, employment law, estate planning, health law, and taxation. SETH I. CORBIN, ’06,
REBECCA HEATON HALL, ’06,
has become an associate attorney at Weiss Burkardt and is part of a team focused on special education matters for school districts.
has been named partner at Woods Oviatt Gilman LLP. She is in the Real Estate Development & Finance Department and focuses her practice in residential and commercial real estate, commercial leasing, real estate financing, and business banking. SARAH J. KWIATKOWSKI, ’06,
won re-election for a third term to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives 48th District encompassing Washington County, defeating his Republican opponent Sonia Stopperich. BRANDON NEUMAN, ’06,
has been elected to the Board of Governors of the Pitt Law Alumni Association. His current firm is Meyer, Unkovic & Scott, where he serves on the Diversity Committee. TONY J. THOMPSON, ’06,
has been elected shareholder and director at Sherrard, German & Kelly PC, where he is a member of the firm’s Corporate, Real Estate, and Financial Services groups. Altman also was named a Super Lawyers magazine 2015 Pennsylvania Rising Star in the mergers and acquisitions practice area for the second year in a row. JONATHAN P. ALTMAN, ’07,
has started Salisbury Legal, LLC, and Salisbury Consulting, LLC. These practices will focus on providing legal and management consulting services to nonprofits and social enterprises. ABIGAIL SALISBURY, ’07,
has joined Rothman Gordon as an associate. He concentrates his practice on business and commercial litigation matters and is experienced with trial and appellate work, motion practice, and all aspects of the discovery process, including complex and electronic discovery. RYAN P. STEWART, ’08,
has been appointed associate professor of law at West Virginia University. She also was selected for the Health Law Scholars Workshop in St. Louis, Missouri, where she presented a paper on “A (Civil) Right to Health Insurance.” VALARIE BLAKE, ’09,
has been named shareholder of Frank, Gale, Bails, Murcko & Pocrass, PC. DENNIS D. HAYES, ’11,
has joined Cohen & Grigsby as a lateral associate. She will focus on labor and employment matters, working with both private and public employers. CARSEN N. RUPERTO, ’11,
was named a Richmond Style Weekly Top 40 Under 40 for her work in elder law and care. Her pro bono work recently earned her the Krista Latshaw Pro Bono Award from the Legal Information Network For Cancer, where she was highlighted for her zealous advocacy for patients. JOLEY EASON, ’12,
has joined Meyer, Unkovic & Scott as an associate in the Corporate and Business Law and Real Estate and Lending groups. JOSHUA J. HOFFMAN, ’12,
joined Burns White LLC and concentrates his practice on medical malpractice defense, professional liability litigation, and employment-related matters. CHRISTIAN W. FRANCIS, ’13,
has been appointed as an associate to Burns White LLC and concentrates his practice on defending employers and insurance companies in worker’s compensation disputes. SAMUEL J. DALFONSO, ’14,
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IN MEMORIAM
JOHN E. MURRAY J R. 1932 – 2015
Photo: Terry Clark
John E. Murray Jr. passed away at the age of 82, a dedicated legal educator and prolific scholar who served Duquesne University as president, chancellor, and law professor and was a former dean and long-time faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Pitt Chancellor Emeritus Mark Nordenberg shared a special bond with Murray. Not only did both men hold law degrees from the University of Wisconsin, but Nordenberg was Murray’s first faculty hire as dean of Pitt Law in 1977. Then in 1985, when Nordenberg became the Pitt Law dean, Murray — then dean of Villanova University School of Law — was his first faculty hire. “It would be hard to imagine a better person or a more accomplished professional,” Nordenberg said of Murray. Murray was Duquesne’s 11th president, serving in that capacity for 13 years before being named chancellor and law professor in 2001. He taught a full course load until his death.
N E IL H . ALEXANDER 1966 – 2015
Photo: Pam Panchak
In 2011, Neil H. Alexander was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the devastating condition better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Alexander and his wife, Suzanne, approached this diagnosis as a life challenge and drew on incredible strength. Though he lost his battle with ALS on March 24, 2015, at the age of 49, he had spent the remainder of his life dedicating himself to raising awareness of ALS. Together, the Alexanders launched the Live Like Lou Center for ALS Research at the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute in February 2015. The Alexanders’ $2.5 million gift, which is being matched by the University, spearheads the $10 million campaign for a center whose mission is to drive research that discovers a therapy or cure for ALS. In May, the Pitt Alumni Association honored Alexander posthumously with the Bill Baierl Distinguished Alumni Service Award for ongoing service to the University. Alexander graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1997 and prior to that he served with distinction as a senior police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department.
JUDGE RUGGERO J. ALDI SERT 1919 – 2014
Photo: AP Photo / Dennis Cook
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Judge Ruggero J. Aldisert, retired senior U.S. Circuit Court judge, law professor, World War II veteran, and University of Pittsburgh alumnus and emeritus trustee, died Dec. 28, 2014. He was 95. Known to friends as “Rugi,” Judge Aldisert enrolled in the University of Pittsburgh in 1937 and Pitt Law in 1941. At the end of World War II after serving as a Marine, Judge Aldisert returned to Pitt Law, where he earned a JD in 1947. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He eventually would become chief judge of that court, taking senior status in 1986, and would retire at the age of 94 after 46 years in the federal courts. In addition to his judicial work, Judge Aldisert was a dedicated legal educator, serving as a visiting professor and lecturer at a number of prestigious law schools, including Pitt Law. He also authored multiple textbooks that are now listed as required reading within many law schools and offices. “He was very proud of his ties to the University and let everyone know that he was a ‘Pitt person,’ ” Chancellor Emeritus Mark Nordenberg said about Judge Aldisert. “Since he was considered to be a giant of the federal judiciary — a reputation that he earned through his judging, his writing, and his teaching — the fact that he assigned much of the credit for his successes to the education that he received here was a high compliment.”
PAR T I N G
SHOT In a dispute that has annual impact on every living American, Pitt Law recently weighed in on the copyright dispute involving the song “Happy Birthday to You.” When the Warner Music Group argued it owned the rights to the song, worth $2 million a year, Pitt Law librarian Linda Tashbook retrieved Pitt’s rare 1922 copy of the Everyday Song Book to scan the sheet music as evidence for the plaintiff. It appeared to show the song was published without the required copyright notice. In a September 22 ruling, U.S. District Judge George H. King blew out the candles on Warner’s claim. Unless the order is stayed on appeal, the world’s most familiar English song (according to the Guinness Book of World Records) is now once again in the public domain.
NONPROFIT ORG US POSTAGE
School of Law Barco Law Building 3900 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15260 law.pitt.edu
PAID PITTSBURGH PA PERMIT NO 511
u pcom i ng
LUNCH & LEARN
nov e m be r 4 , 2 015
Rivers Club, Pittsburgh, PA Join us for a Lunch & Learn with Assistant Professor Jasmine Gonzales Rose as she discusses “Latinos and Language Rights: Giving Voice to Racial Justice.” A graduate of Harvard Law School, Gonzales Rose serves on the Boards of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania Greater Pittsburgh chapter and the Abolitionist Law Center. She is a critical proceduralist and is particularly interested in the intersections of race, language, citizenship, and lay participation in the legal system. This event is free and open to all Pitt Law alumni and members of the Allegheny County Bar Association. RSVP now at law.pitt.edu/alumni/events, or contact the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs at 412-648-1305 or lawalum@pitt.edu.