Faculty Awards and Achievements - 2020 Magazine

 Faculty Awards

Prof. Melissa Breger
Howard A. Levine Award for Excellence in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare, New York State Bar Association Committee on Children and the Law, June 2020.

Prof. Christine Sgarlata Chung
Excellence in Scholarship, Albany Law School, August 2020.

Dean Antony Haynes
Excellence in Service, Albany Law School, August 2020.

Prof. Louis Jim
Justina Cintron Perino Award, Albany Law School Moot Court Board, June 2020.

Prof. James Redwood
Excellence in Teaching, Albany Law School, August 2020.

Prof. Sarah Rogerson
Immigrant Advocate Award, Solidarity Committee of the Capital District, September 2019.

Faculty Achievements

President and Dean Alicia Ouellette ’94 Serving as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Law School Deans through January 2021.

Taught the new summer course COVID-19: Law in a Time of Pandemic, which explored the novel coronavirus’ impacts on the practice of law. (See page 21.)

Partnered with deans of Columbia Law School, University of Colorado Law School, University of Georgia School of Law, University of Oregon School of Law, and USC Gould School of Law to launch “Open Access: Inside Legal Education with Law School Deans,” a six-part digital dis- cussion series that engages prospective students and encourages conversation about legal educa- tion. The first event was held in August 2020 and continues through January 2021.

Prof. Pamela Armstrong

Served as a member of the steering committee for the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS).

Presented “Creating Short Exercises that Engage Students in Learning Substantive Law Using Lawyer Roles” at the virtual SEALS Conference in August 2020.

Contributed “Developing Skepticism as a Skill: Some Quick Thoughts on Why Academic Support Should Be Thought of as Separate from Bar Preparation/Bar Support” to the Best Practices in Legal Education Blog in July 2020.

Prof. Ava Ayers

Presented at the virtual CLE and training “Immigration 101” in April 2020.

Appointed to the New York State Bar Association task force of legal scholars who will advise attorneys, journalists, and members of the public on issues related to the 2020 presidential race.

Serving on Albany’s Policing Reform and Reinvention Collaborative, which is tasked with working on the city’s police reform plan. (See page 8.)

Prof. Ira Bloom

Prepared 2020 supplements to FEDERAL TAXATION OF ESTATES, TRUSTS, AND GIFTS (LexisNexis 4th ed. 2014) and FUNDA- MENTALS OF TRUSTS AND ESTATES (Carolina Academic Press 5th ed. 2017).

 

Prof. Vincent Bonventre

Appeared as a featured guest, discussing the U.S. Supreme Court and various issues of constitutional law, in numerous venues, includ- ing the New York State Bar Association podcast Miranda Warnings, WMHT-TV’s “New York NOW,” and KJZZ radio (NPR-Phoenix).

Gave expert analysis in print and broadcast media on a range of topics to journalists from the New York Law Journal, Newsday, the Associ- ated Press (syndicated to the Washington Post), “The Capitol Pressroom,” “Capital Tonight,” WAMC radio, Spectrum News, and elsewhere.

Delivered CLEs and other presentations on the

U.S. Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals to bar and academic groups, includ- ing NYSBA, Oneida County Bar Association, the Government Law Center’s Saratoga series, Marist College, and the Green Mountain Academy for Lifelong Learning.

Prof. Melissa Breger

Awarded a book contract with Rowman & Littlefield’s Lexington Books for EXPLORING NORMS AND FAMILY LAWS ACROSS

THE GLOBE, which will feature chapters from 20 of the nation’s top family law scholars. The book is expected to be published in 2021.

Research on corporal punishment in schools (with colleagues from the University at Albany) was featured in the column “School Spankings are Banned Just about Everywhere in the World Except in U.S.,” published by The Conversation. The column was read more than 8,900 times, shared extensively on social media, and picked up by other news outlets; ThinkCERCA requested permission to use the article as a teaching tool.

Presented her work-in-progress “Stemming the Tide: Social Norms and Child Sex Trafficking” as part of the Feminist Legal Theory panel “The State and Violence: New Proposals for Stopping the Cycle,” and chaired a scholarship panel on “State Power and the Lives of Children” at the Law and Society Association meeting in May 2020.

Prof. Raymond Brescia

Taught the course Sales for the first time—a blend of bar prep and training for practice.

Made several appearances on radio, podcasts, and in print related to the release of his book, THE FUTURE OF CHANGE, and presented at a book-launch event that drew more than 150 members of the law school community. (See page 55.)

Published several op-eds on racial justice issues and the COVID-19 crisis and its lasting im- pacts, including a piece published by The Hill, co-authored with U.S. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, that discussed the threat of evictions looming over the country.

Collaborated with colleagues at the University at Albany on: the forthcoming book CRISIS LAWYERING: EFFECTIVE LEGAL ADVO- CACY IN EMERGENCY SITUATIONS; and the Nonprofit Guide, a free online resource (nonprofitguide.net) for information on 501(c)(3) advocacy and lobbying, created by students at both institutions.

Prof. Joe Buffington

Elected treasurer of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Academic Support at the AALS Annual Meeting in January 2020.

He will serve as the section’s secretary in 2021, chair-elect in 2022, and chair in 2023.

Prof. Christine Sgarlata Chung

Contributed “Climate Change, Infrastructure, and Municipal Finance” to The FinReg Blog, published by Duke University School of Law’s Global Financial Markets Center in August 2020. The post was part of the blog’s special issue, Climate Change and Financial Markets—Risk, Regulation, and Innovation.

Moderated Albany Law School’s Justice Robert Jackson Lecture, “The White House on Trial,” which featured CNN legal analyst Michael Zeldin, in November 2019.

Interviewed on Spectrum News’ “Capital Tonight” about structural deficits and other municipal-finance issues facing in Upstate New York cities in August 2020.

Prof. Stephen Clark

Spoke with several media outlets on constitu- tional law issues, including to NEWS10 ABC for the segment “Local Facebook post draws questions on hate speech” in August 2019.

Prof. Jaya Connors

Featured in the Saratoga Living article “What It’s Like Being A Domestic Violence Lawyer in The Capital Region During the COVID-19 Crisis” in April 2020.

Delivered a CLE presentation on “Immigration Issues in Family Court” at Albany Law School in February 2020.

Prof. Joe Connors ’88

Supervised law interns who represented dozens of clients with chronic health impairments.

Through the Health Law Clinic, the students worked on a range of legal matters, including appeals of denials of health insurance coverage, eligibility challenges, and denials of crucial public benefits.

Prof. Patrick Connors

Contributed several New York Law Journal columns, including “The COVID-19 Toll: Time Periods and the Courts During Pan- demic” (July 2020) and “Court of Appeals Addresses Several Statute of Limitations Ques- tions and Other Important Procedural Issues” (August 2020), the lead article to the journal’s special section on the Court of Appeals and appellate practice.

Scholarship cited in more than 125 reported decisions in 2019-2020, including from the New York Court of Appeals and the Appellate Division.

Served on the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on the New York Bar Examination and participated in the authorship of two task-force reports in March 2020; presented to judges and lawyers on COVID-19, including “Interpreting the COVID-19 Toll and Related Administrative Orders” to justices of the New York State Court System, and a five-part series “Coronavirus and the Courts” sponsored by American LegalNet.

Prof. Edward De Barbieri

Quoted in the Legaltech News/Law.com article “As Courts Go Remote, Law Schools’ Tech Development Looks to Fill the Gaps” in April 2020.

Appointed secretary of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Community Economic Development, and a member of the executive committee of the AALS Section on Real Estate Transactions.

Presented “Opportunism Zones” at the Seton Hall Law Faculty Colloquium in February 2020; the ABA Tax Section Midyear Meeting in Boca Raton, Fla., in January 2020; the AALS Property Section Junior Faculty Works-in- Progress Session in January 2020; the Clinical Writers’ Workshop at NYU School of Law in September 2019; the 8th Annual State and Local Government Works-in-Progress Confer- ence at University of Virginia School of Law in September 2019; and on episode 497 of “Ipse Dixit,” a legal-scholarship podcast, in March 2020.

Prof. Ciji Dodds

Co-founded the independent Institute for Racial Justice Research and Advocacy in June 2020. (See page 11.)

Appeared as a regular panelist on WAMC public radio’s award-winning program “The Roundtable.”

Presented on the panel “From Panopticism to Optimism” during the ClassCrits annual

conference at Western New England University School of Law in Springfield, Mass., in November 2019.

Prof. Anthony Paul Farley

Co-founded the independent Institute for Racial Justice Research and Advocacy in June 2020. (See page 11.)

Taught as the Peter Rodino Distinguished Visiting Professor at Rutgers Law School in Newark, N.J., during the spring 2020 semester.

Presented “The Sickness Unto Death: The American Psyche Since 2016” at the virtual lecture series Systemic Racism in U.S. Law and Politics, presented by the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights in June 2020.

Prof. Alexandra Harrington ’05

Gave eight presentations during a nine-day span at the United Nations Climate Change Confer- ence in Madrid, Spain, in December 2019.

Co-hosted and participated on several panels at the international legal symposium Human

Rights, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Law. The event, presented by the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and the Centre International Sustainable Development Law, drew more than 1,200 attendees made up of U.N. officials, scholars, practitioners, and other experts from around the globe.

 

Dean Antony Haynes

Consulted on Airbnb’s anti-discrimination initiative, Project Lighthouse; served as a reviewer for the initiative-led paper, “Measur- ing Discrepancies in Airbnb Guest Acceptance Rates Using Anonymized Demographic Data.”

Presented “Algorithmic Injustice: How Arti- ficial Intelligence Embeds Human Bias and Distorts Our Decision-Making” as part of Harvard Kennedy School’s seminar series in February 2020.

Presented on “Facial Recognition Bias and Implications Within Higher Education and Beyond” at Towson University as part of the President’s Inclusive Leadership Institute in March 2020.

Prof. Robert Heverly ’92

Finished serving as reporter on the Uniform Law Commission’s “Tort Law Relating to Drones Act.”

Presented “Cyborg Lives: The Law and Policy of Human Augmentation” at Heinrich Heine University Faculty of Law in Düsseldorf, Germany, in January 2020.

Moderated and presented at the Albany Law Review Symposium, The Courts are Alive with the Sound of Music, in October 2019.

(See page 16.)

Prof. Keith Hirokawa

Participated in “Reimagining Environmental Law: Implementation and 2020 Planning” at the Airlie House in Warrenton, Va., in November 2019.

Prof. Michael Hutter

Contributed several New York Law Journal columns, including “Attorney-Client Privilege and the Corporate Client; Can a Former Employee Speak for the Client?” (June 2020) and “Excited Utterances and the Quest for Reliability, Redux” (February 2020).

Authored an amicus curiae brief in Hewitt v. Palmer Vet. Clinic, an appeal in the New York Court of Appeals, arguing that the court should modify N.Y. common law and allow a person attacked by a dog while on commercial prem- ises to sue the premises owner for negligence.

Presented lectures on evidence and New York practice–related topics to the Academy of Trial Lawyers, Office of the N.Y. Attorney General, Defense Research Institute, and the Albany County and Dutchess County Bar Associa- tions; lectured at the New York State Judicial Institute’s program for newly elected state court judges, annual summer sessions, and lunch- and-learn programs on evidence-related topics.

Prof. Louis Jim

Contributed two posts to the Best Practices for Legal Education blog: “Building A Solid Foun- dation Before Week 1” (September 2019) and “Preparing 1Ls for Persuasive Communication by Integrating Procedural Rules and Substan- tive Law” (February 2020).

Prof. Mary Lynch

Served as a planning committee member for the joint AALS/CLEA Virtual Clinical Conference in July 2020.

Co-presented (with Andrea Curcio) at the annual Villanova Law Review Norman J. Shachoy Symposium, Gender Equity in Law Schools, at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law in October 2019.

Taught the course Sales for the first time—a blend of bar prep and training for practice.

Participated as a panelist at the virtual sym- posium Power, Privilege, and Transformation: Lessons from the Pandemic for Online Legal Education, hosted by the University of Miami School of Law in partnership with the AALS Journal of Legal Education in August 2020.

 

Prof. Nancy Maurer

Facilitated discussions at the Association of American Law Schools and Clinical Legal Education Association’s New Clinician Virtual Conference in June 2020; participated in planning the October 2020 national externship conference “X10: 20/20 Vision for the Future” and prepared a workshop for new externship clinicians.

Led the field placement and pro bono scholar programs’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic: provided resources, updates, and tips for remote work for field placement students and supervisors; facilitated alternate remote assignments and supervision; created optional remote assignments to fill in gaps in hours; and arranged for other accommodations.

All students satisfactorily completed their field placement and pro bono scholar program courses.

Provided training opportunities addressing remote learning, ethical issues in remote super- vision, diversity, inclusion, and bias, including a two-part CLE with supervising attorneys on creating an inclusive learning environment for Albany Law School’s students in August and September 2020. (See page 10.)

Dean Connie Mayer

Spoke with WAMC radio about the impact of The Justice Center at Albany Law School after the unveiling of its new sign in September 2019.

Prof. David Pratt

Served as editor of the 2020 New York University Review of Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation.

Served as chair of the Life Insurance and Employee Benefits Committee of the New York State Bar Association Trusts and Estates Law Section.

Dean Rosemary Queenan

Named chair of the Law Education Working Group of the New York State Bar Association’s Attorney Well-Being Task Force.

Prof. Patricia Reyhan

Co-launched and -hosted Albany Law School’s First Mondays series, which explores the legal overlays of topics in the news. (See page 12.)

Prof. Sarah Rogerson

Elected to the Niskayuna Central School District Board of Education for a three-year term beginning in 2020.

Appeared as a regular panelist on WAMC public radio’s award-winning program “The Roundtable.”

Appointed by the president and dean to direct The Justice Center at Albany Law School. (See page 3.)

Prof. Christian Sundquist

Co-founded the independent Institute for Racial Justice Research and Advocacy in June 2020. (See page 11.)

Law review article “Uncovering Juror Racial Bias” (96 Denver Law Review 309 [2019]; see Fall 2019 issue of Albany Law Magazine) was selected by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as a must-read article on criminal justice this year. The article was also highlighted in NACDL’s

The Champion magazine.

Served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Minority Groups

and Section on Evidence; co-organized several preliminary programs for the AALS Annual Meeting in January 2021.

Prof. Evelyn Tenenbaum

Presented “Half a Chance: Legal and Ethical Challenges Related to Splitting Donated Livers” at the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) Conference in Pittsburgh, Pa., in October 2019.

Presented “Assessing Consent to Intimate Sexual Relations Among Nursing Home Residents with Dementia” and co-presented “Facilitating Greater Use of Split Liver Transplants” at the World Congress of Bioethics Conference at Penn Medicine, held virtually in Philadelphia, Pa., in June 2020.

Named faculty director of Albany Law School’s Health Law and Healthcare Compliance online graduate programs.

Prof. David Walker

Presented “Citators in the Era of Originalism” at the Association of Law Libraries of Upstate New York’s annual meeting in Albany, N.Y., in October 2020.