Miami Law Magazine Spring 2023

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MIAMI LAW CONTINUES TO DRAW DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS

This past academic year, Miami Law hosted several events that brought distinguished speakers to campus—both in person and virtually.

Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, who successfully prosecuted police officer Derek Chauvin, spoke at the University of Miami as part of the School of Law’s Alan S. Becker and Gary A. Poliakoff Preeminent Leaders in Law Speaker Series. In his nearly hour-long talk, he addressed everything from the lessons learned during the Chauvin trial to the importance of implementing police reform.

“It’s important that we have a conversation about a critical issue facing our nation, a critical issue that is historic, a critical issue that is nationwide, a critical issue that has resulted in tremendous social and economic disruption in our society. And that issue is the conflict between police and communities, particularly communities of color,” Ellison said.

The Becker/Poliakoff Speaker Series also brought Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, to campus in the spring ’22 semester. Clarke leads the DOJ’s broad federal civil rights enforcement

efforts and works to uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all who live in the United States. Clarke is a lifelong civil rights lawyer who has spent her entire career in public service.

Also during the spring semester, Miami Law’s Human Rights Clinic, in partnership with George Washington University, U.N. Women, and others, hosted the Gender Justice and Human Rights Symposium “Holistic Approaches to Gender Justice.”

Grammy-award singer, humanitarian, and UM alumna Gloria Estefan provided the welcome remarks, speaking candidly about her own experiences and subsequent advocacy, and set the tone for the symposium.

At the ninth annual Henkin Lecture on Human Rights, Yale Law Professor Harold Hongju Koh delivered the lecture, “Inside the Biden Administration’s Human Rights Challenge.” He is one of the country’s leading experts in public and private international law, national security law, and human rights. Koh served in the Obama administration as the legal advisor of the U.S. Department of State and was one of a group of lawyers who filed suit against Russia on March 7, 2022 at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. 

CHILDREN & YOUTH LAW CLINIC ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR NAMED OUTSTANDING CHILD ADVOCATE

The statewide advocacy organization Florida’s Children First presented Children & Youth Law Clinic Associate Director Robert Latham with its “Outstanding Child Advocate” award.

“This award is so well-deserved. Robert is a tremendous asset to the law school and our child welfare advocacy community. He is a very talented lawyer who models zealous representation and strong client relationships for his students. Everyone in the courtroom respects his advocacy even if they are on opposite sides of an issue,” said Professor Kele Stewart, co-director of the CYLC. “With our clinic’s policy work, he brings such sophisticated and creative analysis that he is a go-to expert and resource for advocates, policymakers, and the media statewide and nationally,” she added.

Latham is a clinical instructor and practitioner-inresidence at the clinic. He teaches students who handle cases involving abused, abandoned, and neglected children in various forums, including dependency and family courts, administrative hearings, and federal appellate courts.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Latham built an interactive website mapping the placements of every single child who passed through Florida’s Department of Children and Families since 2002. He continues to analyze data and report on his findings and provides commentary and analysis of trends in the foster care system on his informative blog.

MIAMI LAW RANKS IN TOP 30 IN INTERNATIONAL LAW & CLINICAL TRAINING IN U.S. NEWS; TOP 50 IN EMPLOYMENT SUCCESS IN LAW.COM

Miami Law’s specialty programs in international law and clinical training have been ranked among the top in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.

Miami Law has a 64-year history of engagement with international and comparative law and over 20 faculty members who teach or do scholarly research in the area.

Miami Law’s clinical training program, consisting of 10 in-house clinics with 300+ students participating, was ranked 26th by U.S. News and World Report.

“What sets us apart is not only our wide range of clinical offerings but the fact that our clinics and practicums are taught primarily by full-time faculty,” says Rebecca Sharpless, associate dean for experiential learning and director of the Immigration Clinic.

Additionally, Miami Law was listed in Law.com’s 2022 Go-To Law Schools hiring report. The report ranks the 50 law schools that sent the highest percentage of 2021 J.D.s into associate jobs at the nation’s largest 100 law firms. From Miami Law, 40 recent grads went to the top 100 firms, placing Miami Law as the highest among all Florida law schools.

On top of employment success, Miami Law ranked 25th in promotions to partner in the 2022 Go-To Law Schools: the Associates to Partner ranking shows law schools that saw the most alumni promoted to partner in 2021. 

INNOVATION AND TECH AT MIAMI LAW— FIRST LAW SCHOOL IN U.S. WITH NFTs COURSE

The University of Miami School of Law was the first law school in the country to offer a course in non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, through its Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law postgraduate program.

NFTs are unique, blockchain-based digital tokens that have been inextricably associated with a piece of content— most often digital. NFTs can be bought, sold, and traded, and when NFTs are minted in limited editions, that rarity can help drive value in the marketplace.

“NFTs are a hotly discussed topic and bring rise to many compelling legal concerns,” said Greg Levy, director of EASL. “At a time when very few are even aware of the existence of NFTs, it is a rapidly changing corner of the collectible market. Our EASL program continues to lead the country in educating our students on cutting-edge developments and arming them with the practical skill set to have a leg-up and practice in this space.

“There is no one better suited to teach this inaugural class than Steve Krause, who was able to lean on his deep background in the industry with Dapper Labs to deliver an incredibly practical and engaging course,” Levy said. Krause is vice president and head of commercial legal at Dapper Labs, the creators of NBA Top Shot, NFL All Day, and CryptoKitties.

Additionally, Miami Law hosted the Hoffman Forum Civil Conversation, which discussed “NFTs—Changing the Game or Gaming the System?” this past spring semester. The Hoffman Forum is supported by generous gifts from Larry J. Hoffman, J.D. ’54, and Debi Hoffman, J.D. ’83. 

MIAMI LAW INNOCENCE CLINIC WINS FREEDOM FOR WRONGLY CONVICTED JACKSONVILLE MAN

The Innocence Clinic won a stunning victory last year for client Dustin Duty, securing his release from prison. The now 36 year old was wrongfully convicted of a 2013 armed robbery in Jacksonville and sentenced to 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

“After five years of strenuous litigation, this victory finally secures Mr. Duty’s long-overdue release,” said Craig Trocino, the clinic’s director. “While we can’t give him the last eight years of his life back, we are honored to have secured his freedom and cleared his name.”

The Innocence Clinic took on his case in 2016 after Duty wrote letters to the clinic begging to help him prove his innocence. At least 18 students worked on Duty’s case over the past five years; the clinic represented him jointly with the Innocence Project of Florida.

“The students who worked on Mr. Duty’s case became dedicated advocates for his freedom,” said Trocino. “The thousands of hours of work spent on his case will allow him to celebrate his 37th birthday as a free man.”

INTERNATIONAL MOOT TEAM ENDS AS ONE OF BEST REGIONAL TEAMS FOR THE AMERICAS

After ten months, 30,000 words of written briefs, countless hours of practice, regional and international rounds, Miami Law’s International Moot Court Program, the only of its kind in the United States, emerged from the International Bar Association’s International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition as the top-ranked team in the Western Hemisphere.

In March 2022, the regional round for the Americas was hosted virtually from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, with Miami Law competing against over a dozen U.S. and Canadian law schools. Only the highestscoring schools proceeded to the competition’s international final rounds at the International Criminal Court’s seat in The Hague, Netherlands.

Miami Law’s team, David Scollan, 3L, Nicoletta Pappas, 3L, and Jordan Bayley Williams, J.D. ’22, was among the

select few in the Americas to advance, finishing second— ahead of other top law schools, such as Georgetown, Emory, and William & Mary.

In the international final round, the team advanced to the quarterfinals and was awarded the following accolades:

¡ Winner, Best Regional Team for the Americas

¡ Winner, Best Defense Counsel—David Scollan

¡ Winner, IBA Award for Best Oralist of the Preliminary Rounds—David Scollan

¡ Winner, Best Defense Counsel Team

¡ First Runner-up, Best Defense Counsel Memorial

¡ First Runner-up, Best Victims Counsel Team

¡ Second Runner-up, Best Victims Counsel—Nicoletta Pappas. 

MOOT COURT TEAM RANKS #17 IN U.S. IN 2022

Miami Law’s moot court team—the Charles C. Papy, Jr. Moot Court Board—continues its upward trajectory of success. It has jumped 13 spots since 2019 to become one of the top teams among all U.S. law schools. This past academic year, it was ranked 17th by Blakely Advocacy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center, which compiles the rankings. The team finished 21st in the nation during the 2020 – 2021 academic year.

Miami Law’s International Moot Court program also contributed to the year’s success in the national ranking as team members participated in competitions as well.

“I want to express how proud and honored I feel to have

served as president of the Charles C. Papy Jr., Moot Court Board this year,” said recent graduate Taylor Alicia Hill, former president of the board. “Getting to lead this team, as well as serving Miami Law in the process, has been the highlight of my law school experience.”

The Papy Moot Court Board’s ranking resulted from hard work at multiple competitions during the 2021 – 2022 academic year. In addition, the international moot court team’s notable participation in the IBA ICC Moot Court Competition and Stetson International Environmental Law Competition added to the high national ranking. 

THOMSON REUTERS SELECTS STUDENT’S ARTICLE ON COPYRIGHT LAW AS BEST LAW REVIEW ARTICLE

Logan Sandler, J.D. ’22, had his law review article chosen by Thomson Reuters (West) as one of the best law review articles related to entertainment law, publishing, and the arts published within the last academic year. Thomson Reuters included Sandler’s article in the 2022 edition of the Entertainment, Publishing, and the Arts Handbook.

“I am very proud of this accomplishment and for our law review’s efforts in helping me bring the article into its best possible form,” said Sandler. Sandler’s article, “What Is Standard Tomorrow, May Not Have Been Today: An Argument for Claiming Scènes à Faire,” was initially published in the first issue of the University of Miami Law Review’s 76th Volume in November 2021.

The article focuses on a lawsuit concerning the “Pirates of the Caribbean” film franchise, which required the 9th Circuit to grapple with applying a key copyright law principle: the scènes à faire doctrine. The doctrine limits the scope of what authors can claim as substantially similar by excluding the stock elements in an expressive work from copyright protection.

Sandler brings a uniquely personal and nuanced perspective to his article. An American Film Institute Conservatory graduate, he has a distinguished record as an award-winning screenwriter and film director. 

PROFESSORS TAKE ON LEADERSHIP ROLES FOR INTELLECTUAL LIFE AND EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Professor Charlton Copeland was named associate dean of intellectual life this past academic year and stepped into the role pioneered by Professor Lili Levi.

“This was an easy decision for me, as Charlton is a great fit for this role,” said Nell Jessup Newton, Miami Law’s then interim dean. “He is a prolific federalism scholar; he is a Dean’s Distinguished Scholar; and, most recently, his work has been recognized with a Mellon Creates Grant and the 2021 Clyde Ferguson award from the AALS Section on Minority Groups.”

The role is designed to cultivate and showcase faculty achievements in research, scholarship, and pedagogy.

Miami Law’s top-ranked experiential learning programs also transitioned with a change in associate deans as Professor Rebecca Sharpless took over the reins from Professor Kele Stewart.

“I look forward to building on the remarkable achievements of our experiential program during the six years Professor Stewart led us,” said Sharpless, who directs the Immigration Clinic. “We now offer our students hands-on learning second to none. And we are only getting better. This summer, our award-winning law clinics moved into newly designed, high-tech space in the library that will facilitate student learning and group our clinical faculty together. The synergies and cross-learning possibilities will be endless.” 

STUDENTS

Law School Builds Advocacy Skills for Third-Year Student

VICTOR ON-SANG JR. IS ROOTED IN THE NORTH MIAMI WORKING-CLASS IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORHOOD WHERE HE GREW UP. He was exposed early to the complications of underserved communities navigating the unfamiliar terrain of life without the benefit of language or documentation.

He is the oldest of three; his parents fled Nicaragua during the Contra wars as 18 year olds. On-Sang realized the importance of legal assistance after understanding how the NACARA law provided a path for Nicaraguans and others to achieve permanent residency.

“Part of the motivation of going to law school was learning how Catholic Legal Services worked on my parents’ asylum,” he said. It birthed a desire to be of use to his community and others like it.

The 29 year old is on track to realize the goal when he graduates in May and uses his Miami Law education and legal experience combined with more than a decade of advocacy.

During the summer of his rising 3L year, On-Sang was a legal intern at the Movement Law Lab. The organization focused on building a sector of legal organizations and lawyers with the expertise and

capacity to work alongside organized communities and progressive social movements. There, he engaged in multi-city support to tenant organizations/movement lawyers fighting evictions and for tenant protections, supported a design team of attorneys and organizers for a housing justice fellowship, and worked with movement lawyering training programs for large legal and human rights organizations around the world.

On-Sang also interned at the Miami office of the National Labor Relations Board, conducting unfair labor practice investigations by drafting affidavits and researching labor case law to determine whether parties breached the duty of fair representation and violations of protected concerted activity. As a legal intern and research assistant at Miami Law’s Health Rights Clinic, he represented clients with immigration issues, researched possible relief for first-time Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program applicants, and successfully obtained a Legal Permanent Residency with inadmissibility waivers for asylees.

At the Miami office of the Community Justice Project, On-Sang worked with staff attorneys in drafting documents for litigation challenging Florida’s anti-protest law, aimed at silencing public outcry in the wake of

the George Floyd murder.

“The internships, externships, clinic work, and the Community Lawyering course with Alana Greer and Denise Ghartey from CJP have given me a more nuanced understanding of my postgraduate path,” he said.

While studying sociology at Florida International University, he began volunteering with outreach groups like the Dream Defenders, the advocacy group started in the wake of the killing of Treyvon Martin, focusing on organizing

communities toward collective safety and cooperation and away from reliance on police and prisons.

The father of two small children set his sights on Miami Law, primarily because of its reputation and the urging of his wife and mother-in-law.

“They counseled me to apply, telling me I was smart, understood how to analyze complicated materials, apply critical thinking, and could do it,” he said. “I also was drawn to law school because I saw community lawyering

and movement lawyering as an essential step to make a change.

“I was super surprised when I got to Miami at how helpful the administration was,” On-Sang said. “Dean Amy Perez [then director of Student Life] was one of the first people I really connected with and someone who made me feel very supported. I found that the students were friendly and helpful.”

“I want to do more direct services during my 3L year working at Legal

Services of Greater Miami in the consumer unit,” he said. “I want to have the hard legal skills to better contribute as a movement lawyer in the future.

“My postgraduate goal would be to get into the community and economic development unit at Legal Services,” he said. “I want to develop competency and a mastery of transactional legal skills, so I am equipped to assist worker cooperatives, small businesses and nonprofits, and become very involved in the community.”

Joint StudentDegree Voices the Voiceless

the end of the eviction moratorium, helping clients obtain rental assistance to avoid future eviction. She saw firsthand the critical impact legal aid services have on local communities.

Last spring, the Miami Public Interest Scholar did research with the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum, helping them confirm that they are in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, updates to which the Department of Interior recently proposed.

At the same time, Perez was the administrator of the Hoffman Forum, an annual program addressing issues at the intersection of law, public policy, the arts, and social justice. She organized a panel on whether non-fungible tokens provide greater access into the primary market for artists that traditional gallery spaces have underrepresented.

“I think my status as a firstgeneration college graduate and being a Latina in law school encouraged me to seek opportunities that affect underrepresented and under-advocated communities,” Perez said. “I have a passion for the arts and more specifically artist rights; this has led to a fascination of the intersection of the arts with web 3.0 and blockchain technologies.”

The Miami Scholars program encourages students to obtain practical work through clinics and so early in her Miami Law career, Perez worked with Miami Law’s Tenants’ Rights Clinic at

During her 1L year, Perez learned about the joint degree program and was admitted. “The program and its directors were instrumental in my success and interest in art law,” she said. “Specifically, I was so lucky to have found mentorship in Dean Greg Levy and Professor Stephen Urice, both of whom provide unmatched expertise and leadership in their fields.”

Perez also facilitated conversations and panels on campus through her involvement on the planning committee for Miami Law’s Global Entertainment & Sports Law + Industry Conference by organizing discussions about intellectual property rights for graffiti artists and the social and cultural impact of smart public infrastructure projects.

INTERNSHIPS, CLINICS, AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT IN LAW SCHOOL

As a rising 2L, Perez earned a highly competitive legal internship at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, where she gained nonprofit experience in their general counsel’s office. In 2021, Perez secured a prestigious legal internship in the Office of the General Counsel at the Smithsonian Institution, preparing explanatory memorandums on blockchain technology and whether the Smithsonian should accept donations of cryptocurrency.

“Throughout my time at UM I

worked closely with my career adviser, Diane Quick. When I came to her for the first time as a 1L interested in art law, she helped me search for worthwhile opportunities, keep track of deadlines, and prepare for interviews. I am so grateful for her help as the Office of Career and Professional Development truly played an important role in my professional success while at UM,” Perez said.

FUTURE AWAITS

“From my first day at UM, the Miami Scholars program helped me build a pro bono ethic that I plan to maintain after graduation,” Perez said. “The program not only made it possible for me to attend law school, but also presented opportunities and encouraged conversations for becoming involved with the greater Miami community.”

Perez spent the past summer in New York as an incoming summer associate at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, a global law firm focusing on technology and the media, energy, financial, and real estate industries. After passing the bar, she intends to gain valuable experience in New York while maintaining her pro bono ethic through involvement with the arts nonprofits.

“I felt remarkably supported throughout my time at UM. My involvement with the Miami Scholars and EASL programs, coupled with the guidance received through the career office, has been professionally liberating as I continue to explore the art law field. I am so proud and lucky to be a ‘Cane.” 

IF RECENT J.D./LL.M. IN ENTERTAINMENT, ARTS, AND SPORTS LAW GRADUATE CATHERINE PEREZ’S PAST IS ANY INDICATION OF FORTHCOMING SUCCESS, THE FUTURE SHOULD BRACE FOR IMPACT.

TO WATCH

JORDAN BROOKS, 3L joint J.D./M.D., is a fellow for the Center for Ethics and Public Service and the Human Rights Clinic and completing his third year of medical school. He is also a board member for Buddy System MIA. Jordan has worked with numerous public interest organizations, including Catalyst Miami and Legal Services of Greater Miami. He has received two CALI Excellence for the Future Awards in Human Rights and Regulatory Compliance, Corporate Governance, and Sustainability, and a Dean’s Certificate of Achievement in international human rights law. He aspires to create a more sustainable, equitable healthcare system.

The HOPE Public Interest Resource Center and Miami Scholars program attracted MYLES CRANDALL, 3L, to Miami Law. As a 1L, pro bono projects included work with the Fines and Fees Justice Center and Disability Independence Group. He interned with the Federal Public Defender Capital Habeas Unit in Tallahassee. As a 2L, he joined the Innocence Clinic and served on the executive boards of several student organizations. He received the Director’s Book Award for Excellence in Litigation Skills. Last summer, he interned at the Sixth Amendment Center. Myles is a symposium editor for the University of Miami Law Review.

ASHLEY GARCIA, 3L and a Dean’s Merit Scholar, interned with Judge Miguel M. de la O from the 11th Judicial Circuit, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, and the Federal Public Defender Capital Habeas Unit before law school. After her 1L year, Garcia interned at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida for Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Becerra. During her 2L year, Garcia received the CALI Excellence for the Future Award as a member of the Innocence Clinic. She was invited to return to the clinic as a fellow for her final year of law school. In 2022, she was a summer associate at Greenberg Traurig, LLP.

CORY HARTSTEIN, 3L, drawn by the school’s growing health law program, interned with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, where he gained experience working in the Civil Division and the Health Care Fraud Unit as a 1L. As a 2L, he served as a student clinician in the Health Rights Clinic. Hartstein serves as the Health Law Association’s secretary and is a UM Law Trial Team member. He received the Daniel Pearson Endowed Scholarship, given to students who show promise as trial lawyers and dedication to public service. He was a 2022 summer associate in Holland & Knight’s litigation practice.

BRITTANY HICKS, 2L, is passionate about reforming the criminal legal system and exploring her interest in entertainment law. As a 2022 summer associate with Orrick in New York City, Hicks worked on matters ranging from exonerating wrongly incarcerated individuals to closing mergers and acquisitions deals. Hicks also gained an in-house perspective while interning with Netflix’s legal department in the summer of 2022. As a 2L, Hicks focuses on furthering an inclusive campus environment and mentoring Miami’s youth as the vice president of UM’s Black Law Student’s Association. While interning with the Innocence Clinic this year, she is also excited to fulfill the desire that initially attracted her to Miami Law.

STUDENTS AND RECENT GRADUATES TO KEEP AN EYE ON

Before law school, TARMO JÕEVEER, J.D./LL.M. ’22, worked at the United Nations, providing risk management support in conflict areas and assisting with humanitarian relief in the aftermath of natural disasters in the Philippines, Ukraine, and Haiti, among others. At Miami Law, he was a member of the International and Comparative Law Review. After his 2L year, Jõeveer was accepted to the White & Case International Arbitration J.D./LL.M. program that helped to further focus his passion in international law. Currently, he is an associate at Shutts & Bowen LLP in the International Dispute Resolution practice group.

ESTEFANIA LALINDE, J.D. ’22, spent her law school summers as a policy law clerk with D.C.’s Children’s Law Center, a legal intern with MacArthur Foundation, and a summer associate with Baker McKenzie’s transactional group. Drawn to the HOPE Public Interest Resource Center, the former Miami Scholar participated in an international moot court competition in Spanish and served as an intern for the Children & Youth Law Clinic and the Startup Clinic. She started working at Baker McKenzie as an associate this past fall. She is grateful to Miami Law’s clinical education for allowing her to explore her interests and passions.

STEVI LEAVITT, 3L, is a member of the Public Interest Leadership Board, served as a 2021 and 2022 HOPE Fellow, and was the recipient of the 2021 Outstanding 1L Award for Community Service. During her 2022 summer, she interned with the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and Monterey Waterkeeper in California. At Monterey Waterkeeper, Leavitt focused on projects to improve water quality in the Salinas Valley. This spring, Leavitt is externing with Earthjustice, addressing energy and water quality concerns. Upon graduation, Leavitt plans to dedicate her career to tackling environmental justice issues through a community-based lawyering approach.

At age three, DAVID MANCIA-ORELLANA, J.D. ’22, and his family left their home country of El Salvador to pursue a better life. Settling in Rogers, Arkansas, Mancia-Orellana credits his family’s support and mentorship for his accomplishments. Drawing on the strength of his hardworking family, Mancia-Orellana graduated cum laude from Florida State University, then came to Miami Law on a Dean Merit’s Scholarship where he served as the clinic fellow for the Immigration Clinic and clerked at two prominent Arkansas law firms. Mancia-Orellana joined Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C in Greenville, South Carolina, as a business immigration associate.

TORI SIMKOVIC, J.D. ’22, was a staff editor at the University of Miami Law Review; her article about non-unanimous jury verdicts and the Supreme Court’s retroactivity doctrine was published in Volume 76. Simkovic also served as the executive vice president of the Charles C. Papy Jr. Moot Court Board and worked as an intern and fellow for the Miami Law Innocence Clinic. Simkovic was part of the team that worked on the appellate brief that exonerated clinic client Dustin Duty. Simkovic is a litigation associate for DLA Piper.

Miami Law Is 1 of Only 11 Schools in Law & Technology Collaborative

In 2019, Silicon Valley’s inside and outside counsel teamed up to boost diversity in law with a first-of-its-kind 1L program—the Law in Technology Diversity Collaborative.

The collaborative offers law students from underrepresented backgrounds a rare, 10-week paid summer internship opportunity split between in-house experience alongside an introduction to law firms.

SELECT LAW SCHOOLS PARTICIPATE

LiTCs accepts applications from first-year law students from only 11 law schools in the country. By the launch, the program had only invited nine schools to participate, and one was the University of Miami School of Law.

The LiTC “reached out to our office since they were impressed with the diversity in our student body and recognized the talent pool of our law students,” said Sajani Desai Granquist, then adviser in the Office of Career and Professional Development.

Since its inception, the highly selective program, which annually chooses between 30 to 40 students, has accepted many Miami Law students.

The program expands the legal diversity pipeline by providing women, underrepresented minorities, and other first-year law students with internships, networking, and educational events. Hence, interns develop a lasting professional cohort.

UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR 1LS

While many law students are interested in intellectual property, technology law, and data security, there are not many summer opportunities for 1Ls in these areas of law.

The LiTC website describes the program as an “opportunity to introduce high-potential law students to rare in-house technology company experience and also create a pipeline for companies and firms to cultivate diverse talent.”

The first Miami Law students selected to LiTC in 2019 were Michael Bailey and Shanzay Pervaiz, who both worked at eBay and then Bailey at Baker McKenzie and Pervaiz at Hogan Lovells.

Bailey described the experience, saying “The opportunity at eBay gave me the chance to work side by side with…preeminent legal minds.

“The opportunity to work at Baker McKenzie allowed me to go a little further into client services for technology companies helping them explore some of the risks associated with the data privacy regulations that are constantly proliferating around the world,” he said.

The experiences paid off as Bailey, J.D. ’21, is now an associate at Greenberg Traurig and a member of its intellectual property & technology practice group. Pervaiz is applying her expertise in the field as a senior researcher at American University’s Tech, Law & Security Program.

GOING BACK TO THE MIAMI LAW WELL

Since selecting Bailey and Pervaiz from Miami Law in its inaugural year, LitC has chosen 10 more ’Canes—one student in the 2020 class, five in the 2021 class, and four in the 2022 class.

The students have worked at prestigious in-house counsel positions at eBay, Dynatrace, Intuit, Oracle, Roofstock, Uber, and Zynga. They also received hands-on experience at premier law firms, including Allen & Overy, Gibson Dunn, Goodwin Proctor, King & Spaulding, Morrison Foerster, Orrick, and WilmerHale.

MIAMI LAW COHORT PAYS IT FORWARD

While Miami Law’s career office actively communicates the opportunity to 1Ls through its blog, emails, and an info session where an alum of the program speaks, Granquist said ultimately, it is “the prior year’s alumni who take on the initiative to tell 1Ls how great the program is.”

With 360 1Ls in the newest Miami Law 1L class, the Office of Career and Professional Development is ready to promote this opportunity again.

“We are excited Miami Law has been so well represented in the Collaborative and look forward to having more of our outstanding students selected in the future,” said Amy Perez, assistant dean of the Office of Career & Professional Development. 

FACULTY

From an early age, PROFESSOR KELE STEWART KNEW SHE WANTED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN CHILDREN’S AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S LIVES. “I grew up wanting to be a schoolteacher,” she said. “I never knew I’d be a law professor.” That journey was the result of Stewart’s desire to help make the lives of children better.

In her undergraduate years at Cornell University, Stewart majored in human development and family studies. Interning at the New York City Mayor’s Office for Children and Families, it became apparent a law degree would be pivotal in making the kinds of positive impacts she hoped to see from her work. After graduation, she put herself to work serving children and teens in cases involving the New York City’s various child welfare agencies for a year, then earned her J.D. from New York University.

A spirit for serving others runs deep for Stewart, who remembers it instilled in her by her mother throughout her childhood in Trinidad. “My mother had enormous faith, a strong work ethic, and an incredible commitment to service,” she said. “On more than one occasion, she held my birthday party at a local orphanage and made sure the children there were included. I draw inspiration and motivation from her example every day.”

Professor Kele Stewart: A Champion for Children & Families

In today’s juvenile and family advocacy world, Stewart believes strongly in sharing compassion, addressing structural inequity, and amplifying the voices of those who otherwise would not have one.

“Families in the child welfare system are often dealing with multiple difficulties that all compound upon each other. We’re starting to see greater awareness in the mainstream consciousness that the system tends to intervene in the lives of poor families more often and with greater force than families with resources,” she said. “As lawyers in this space, we need to advocate for these families in a holistic way if we want to truly improve lives.”

As an example, Stewart outlines the concept of neglect—a broad term that typically fails to capture the root of the problem, Stewart says. What appears on the surface as a child left home alone without supervision is more often a reflection of housing instability, lack of affordable childcare, inadequate access to mental health or substance abuse programs, and other similar factors.

“The conventional legal mechanism for remedying neglect cases is removing children from their homes and placing them in foster care, an incredibly harmful response that isn’t always justified,” she said. “Instead, I try to teach students to be effective legal advocates who find ways to

support families. I want every student to acquire strong legal skills—what it’s like to interview, counsel, and build relationships. I challenge them to be proactive in solving problems and making life better for their clients.”

One way Stewart accomplishes her mission is through her work with Miami Law’s Children & Youth Law clinic, where she serves as co-director. The practical program allows law students to handle cases of children and teens dealing with abuse, abandonment, and neglect in Miami-Dade County. Stewart supervises students as they advocate for their young clients but emphasizes that the students themselves do the heavy lifting.

“We support them, of course,” she said, “with intensive course work and supervision of their legal work, and by bringing in psychiatrists, education experts, social workers, and other important people working in the field, so they get a real-world view of what’s needed.”

The clinic has successfully advocated for various issues— placement instability, access to physical and mental health services, LGBTQ rights, and giving young people a voice in their dependency cases. Stewart proudly says the clinic graduates have earned prestigious fellowships, worked for the federal government, and have become managing attorneys for various agencies across the country. “They are successful in every field, but

it’s always gratifying to see our alumni stay in this space and become local and national leaders in this area of law,” said Stewart. “They make us proud every day.”

As for Stewart’s career, she’s grateful to be part of the University of Miami. When she left New York to be closer to her family in the Caribbean, the position at UM opened just months later. “Everything aligned at the exact right time. It was a dream job, and I’m still living the dream,” she said.

In her years here, Stewart has found Miami Law to be unique compared to other law schools

throughout the country. Among the most important distinctions, in her opinion, is the multidisciplinary approach the university takes when it comes to providing students with a real-world understanding of the law and how it is applied.

She also believes the strength of the law school is in the diversity of its faculty and the ability to bring a personal area of expertise and interest into the classroom and related work. Stewart is the driving force behind the launch of the UM site of First Star Academy. The holistic academic enrichment program gives high school

students in foster care a pre-collegiate experience on campus each summer.

“I get to follow a lifelong goal of bettering social outcomes,” she said, “but that’s just the beginning. I also get to train future lawyers, conduct research to unite theory and practice, shape policy, and be proactive in improving opportunities for all children and families.

“The University of Miami is one of the rare places where you can wear many hats and advance many goals. Our ability to innovate and be creative is a direct reflection of donor and alumni support and the shared love we have for our experiences here.” 

NEEDS YOU THE NEW ADMINISTRATIVE LANDSCAPE

AUTOMOTIVE RECALLS

In 2021, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and automobile manufacturers recalled 31.8 million cars. One in four vehicles on U.S. roads now has an unrepaired recall defect.

After studying major recalls, I find that the practice of automotive reliability engineering needs to change. Engineers followed extant rules and standards in testing the parts that led to recalls. They did not act unprofessionally. Instead, inadequate engineering practices continue despite severe criticism from academics and practitioners.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER

You undoubtedly have experienced days of high temperature and high humidity. You probably know that on such days, water sometimes forms inside rubber and plastic seals. The effects of high temperature and high humidity are essential, but their combination sometimes produces remarkable results.

Takata sold airbags for 37 car models (including Ferrari and Lamborghini). Takata had a novel design that shaved a few dollars off the cost. Unfortunately, when the air bag’s

propellant got wet, deployed airbags shot metal shards into the cabin.

Cycles of high temperature and high humidity caused these problems. Takata reliability engineers tested high temperature and high humidity, but not in combination. They followed OFAT—testing One Factor At a Time. OFAT is the norm in automotive reliability engineering.

OFAT also was followed in the General Motors Corp. ignition switch with low torque and could “accidentally” leave the “RUN” mode, cutting off the motive power and the car’s electricity. Sensors require electric power to operate, and when the ignition switch fell out of “RUN,” sensors didn’t perform, including the sensors for airbags. Deaths resulted.

GM engineers found that “short” people’s knees might knock the ignition key, causing the problem. They also found that “heavy” keychains could cause the issue.

GM engineers didn’t examine the conjoint case of short people with heavy key chains. Remember Napoleon: many short people carry big sticks (and key chains). The risks of such Napoleons turning the ignition switch are independently higher than the sum of the factors. The prevalence of the Napoleon Complex greatly enlarges the overlap between these factors.

THE “COGNITIVE CAPTURE” OF NHTSA

The prevalence of OFAT in the automotive industry is reflected in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s calculation of how many die from drowning in cars.

According to the Dutch automobile regulator, modern cars have become “impregnable fortresses” when submerged. Your sunroof won’t work, nor will your windows, and your doors will remain locked. You might have bought a pin hammer to break a side window. But, since 2013, your side windows are likely made of glass impervious to pin hammers because of efforts to protect passengers in rollovers.

Many countries in the world are responding to the problem of drowning in cars, but not the U.S. In 2011, an NHTSA researcher found that annually 384 people drown in cars in the U.S. He admitted that his numbers were low because he lacked some data, including from Hawaii, and did not consider drownings by people attempting to drive through floods. In 2016, NHTSA rejected a petition from a mother of a daughter who drowned in a car because it calculated that only 28 people die annually from drowning. NHTSA decided that the problem was de minimis.

Nothing happened between 2011 and 2016 to lower the numbers who drowned in cars. What happened is that NHTSA applied OFAT to the problem and eliminated all cases in which there were concomitant causes. For example, if the vehicle hit a guard rail before entering the water, it was eliminated

because another factor was involved. NHTSA’s methodology reflected its “cognitive capture” by OFAT, a norm of the automotive industry.

I am not an engineer, but I followed the evidence like any lawyer. What surprised me was the extensive literature questioning OFAT. Many have suggested replacements that would be more effective without dramatically increasing costs. Others were more critical and challenged OFAT’s attempts to take engineers’ subjectivities out of the process. Some revealed how reliability tests have become “windowdressings,” not taken seriously. Others spoke about the false objectivities of tools employed in reliability engineering.

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW AND REGULATION

A top-down approach to administrative law (the command-and-control style of regulation) is being replaced by one that understands that government often doesn’t know everything. Instead, government actors work with private actors and other quasi-regulatory actors, such as standardssetting organizations and industry groups. Developing beyond the input processes of the APA, the administrative process now enables more dialogue between multiple participants.

My research suggests that taken-for-granted assumptions need to be directly addressed. The literature I found criticizing OFAT needs to have a place in regulatory dialogue because it is ignored at the automotive shop level. It also is omitted in some quarters at NHTSA.

Critical thinking about OFAT is not unique. Other areas of engineering and seemingly objective knowledge also have their critical literatures. Responding to such should become part of the dialogue of participants in the regulatory process.

Because such critical documents challenge what has been seen as “the best,” introducing them is difficult. People are committed to their extant practices and have various mechanisms to deflect criticism. Engaging in critical dialogue is difficult. Parties in the regulatory process, including the government, must employ individuals (including UM law graduates) adept at critical dialogue. This research has convinced me that the absence of critical discussion generally, not just about OFAT, helps explain what has gone awry in industry and not just automobiles.

Based on Robert Eli Rosen, Critical Dialogue and Regulation, 48 Transportation Law Journal 1 (2021). An earlier version is available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=3932613.

Professor Rosen teaches courses in professional responsibility, business associations, sociology of law, and contracts. His areas of expertise include corporate governance, leadership in the legal profession, and white-collar crime.

ESG— 3 LETTERS THAT ARE HERE TO STAY

"Environmental, Social, and Governance” has become a buzzword for businesses, investors, regulators, politicians, and consumers in recent years. Law firms now market ESG practice lawyers—a concept that did not exist two years ago. Under an ESG framework, investors make investing and purchasing decisions based on non-financial environmental, social, and governance factors. Companies that touted corporate social responsibility programs in the past to highlight their internal commitment to sustainability and society are now focusing on ESG based on the elements and criteria investors use to determine what to invest in and when to disinvest. Governments worldwide have enacted mandatory non-financial disclosure regimes that also focus on ESG factors.

Today, one in $3 invested in the United States has at least some focus on social responsibility. Under a negative screening approach, investors exclude companies that produce products that can harm society, including alcohol, tobacco, weapons, and gambling. Investors using an integration approach assume that companies with a strong ESG program tend to have more engaged workforces, lower turnover, and stronger relationships with their stakeholders, ultimately leading to higher profitability. In an impact investing approach, individuals or funds invest in microenterprises and other vehicles intended to solve problems that governments and charities cannot do while also making a profit for investors.

Under the “E” prong, investors focus on the financial impact of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, resource depletion, water use, deforestation, decarbonation, and other environmental issues throughout a company. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission is implementing a disclosure regime for public companies related to climate change. The recent rise in severe weather and the resulting loss of life and property has made this issue even more urgent to consumers who may have been skeptical about global warming.

To assess these commitments, investors, nongovernmental organizations, and consumer watchdogs use a variety of objective metrics, and increasingly, regulators are cracking down on “greenwashing,” where companies claim that their products, services, or investment vehicles are more environmentally beneficial than they are. This is particularly important because consumers increasingly claim that they want to purchase from companies that demonstrate a commitment to the environment, even if the companies are not legally required to do so.

The social factor has increased in prominence in the public eye, particularly in an era of prolonged social and political unrest. The “S” factor includes working conditions, child labor, health and safety, human rights, employee relations, and diversity. The drive toward diversity, equity, and inclusion stems in part from the “Me Too” movement combating sexual assault and harassment in the workplace; the murder of George Floyd and other Black and brown people at the hands of the police; the rise in hate crimes against Asians; and the increase in antisemitism.

However, well-meaning companies that issue statements of support for racial justice often face immediate and public backlash from their employees who point out inequities in the workforce, poor retention, or underrepresentation of diversity in management. Others have faced shareholder derivative lawsuits based on public statements that didn’t match the reality that employees see day-to-day. Many have faced a backlash from doing what some perceive to be too much in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space, with some states passing laws limiting the types of diversity training.

The other most prominent area in the “S” arena is human rights, which encompasses forced labor, safety, child labor, and the treatment of Indigenous peoples. When people hear the term “human rights,” they often think about authoritarian regimes torturing citizens. Businesses, however, play a significant role in human rights, and even some of the largest, most reputable companies are often responsible or complicit in substantial human rights abuses.

The U. S., the E.U. nations, and other powerful countries

will not likely vote to ratify a binding treaty on business and human rights. Instead, most large multinationals pledge to adhere to the voluntary principles of the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which require states to protect human rights; companies to respect human rights by doing no harm and conducting due diligence; and both the state and companies to provide judicial and nonjudicial access to remedy to aggrieved persons. The U. S. government is currently drafting its second National Action Plan designed to incentivize companies to mitigate human rights impacts.

The U.S. government has also passed Dodd-Frank section 1502, the conflict minerals regulation, which requires companies to disclose whether they have sourced certain minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo and surrounding nations due to the high rate of child labor, forced labor, and rape as a weapon of war. California, the E.U. and some nations have also passed mandatory and voluntary nonfinancial disclosure regimes.

The governance factor includes executive pay, say on pay, bribery and corruption, political lobbying and donations, tax strategy, and board diversity. Although consumers focus

on the “G” factor the least, investors, employees, and NGOs pay attention. For example, watchdogs named and shamed companies that made political contributions to politicians who refused to accept the validity of the 2020 U.S. election and who chose to incorporate in tax havens while employees and average citizens paid high tax bills.

Notwithstanding the noble purposes behind the increased focus on ESG, many prominent commentators and government leaders oppose ESG investing strategies noting that negative screening could harm pension funds and others that would benefit from having some of the “sin stocks” in the portfolio. Others say that investment funds should focus solely on profits and not the social good. Nonetheless, an ESG focus is here to stay.

Marcia Narine Weldon is director of the Transactional Skills Program, Faculty Coordinator of the Business Compliance & Sustainability Concentration, Transactional Law Concentration, and a Lecturer in Law. Her teaching and research interests include corporate governance, employment law, regulatory compliance, corporate social responsibility, and the intersection of business and human rights.

Michael Chiorazzi, associate dean for information services at the Miami Law Library from 2018 – 2022, ruminates on the past, present, and future of legal research and the role of law libraries.

I worked in the University of Miami Law Library as an undergraduate work-study student from the fall of 1975 through the spring of 1976. I applied for the job because it seemed, well, civilized.

My boss was Mrs. Harriet Tuch, a legend for a couple generations of law students. Others warned me to be on my best behavior for Dean Soia

and

Mentschikoff and Professor Philip Heckerling as, apparently, they didn’t suffer fools gladly.

The job consisted of sitting at the front door checking briefcases or working at the circulation desk checking out books. Not bad. And yes, the primarily male law student population all had briefcases and dressed in what today we call business casual. (Law students had yet to discover the backpack as the casebook carrier of choice.) Students were required to open their briefcases at a desk by the doors because the anti-theft 3M Tattle-Tape

systems, now used by law libraries, hadn’t come into wide use.

EARLY DAYS OF ONLINE RESEARCH

Westlaw and Lexis were in their infancy—Westlaw only had headnotes—not the text of cases themselves, and Lexis only had New York and Ohio cases. They ran over phone lines at 1200 baud. You could read faster than that. Students relied entirely on the print and microform collections to do legal research. Even with multiple sets of the National Reporter System, there

again: A Personal Reflection on the Law Library

was a mad rush for the reporters and the photocopiers during writing assignments.

Law schools made tens of thousands of dollars on photocopying in those days. By today’s standards, the print collection was relatively modest, with approximately 230,000 print volumes and almost another 100,000 in microform (microfiche, microcard, and microfilm) volumes.

Today, the collection is approximately 530,000 volumes of print and microforms. We have removed over 100,000 volumes from the print collection in the past three years. And the process of eliminating print collections from the law library will continue for the next several years.

With the advent of a wide array of legal databases—not just Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis, but HeinOnline, ProQuest, and thousands of other databases the university subscribes to—we are better able to meet the student and faculty research needs. With online resources, the entire school can read the same case simultaneously—no need to worry about access to print reporters, no need to photocopy cases to assure access.

It is no exaggeration to say that today’s typical Miami law student has more access to legal and non-legal information than anyone alive in 1975. The number of discrete materials is so large that people have given up trying to count and now rely upon measures like terabytes, zettabytes, and yottabytes (10 to the 24th power bytes).

What students have access to today exceeds that which was available to anyone, anywhere on the

planet when I began at the library. Lexis and Westlaw have grown into mega-gateways to legal and non-legal information. The market has also grown with dozens of considerable (Bloomberg, HeinOnline, for example) and never-ending streams of legal research startups. Litigation support programs and databases are revolutionizing the practice of law. Artificial intelligence is beginning to change the nature of research and writing. It is dizzying.

FORESEEING THE FUTURE OF RESEARCH

Our response has been to offer more research training and training in legal technology. I like to say we are still in the days of digital incunabula. A favorite word for library nerds— incunabula—are books circulated within the first 50 years of publishing. Early books looked more like printed manuscripts than modern printing and typefaces. It had to evolve to meet the new technology. So too, are we in this period of transition. Law, conservative by nature, is sometimes slow to embrace innovation, but when it does, watch out! Right now, there are undoubtedly killer applications being developed that will change the nature of practice in ways we can’t even imagine.

I began my career in law librarianship in 1981. I have been on the faculty of three different law schools before returning to the Miami Law School Library in July 2018. With all the changes, the mission of the law library remains the same.

The Law Library is a research facility designed to support the

work of students and faculty of the University of Miami School of Law. It is one of the largest legal research libraries in the Southeast. The law librarians and staff are committed to providing a high level of service to the students and faculty of the School of Law and to assisting the University of Miami community, the local bar, and the general public. Full-time staff of 22 includes 10 professional librarians— seven have law degrees.

What has changed is the type of work we now do. We spend much less time ordering and processing books and journals and much more time training and teaching law students. The web has made researching both more accessible and more complicated.

I love this quote from Karl Llewellyn:

“[T]he almost inevitable tendency in any thinking, or in any study, is first to turn to the most available material and to study that—to study it exclusively—at the outset; second, having once begun the study of the available, to lose all perspective and come shortly to mistake the merely available, the easily seen, for all there is to see.”

He wrote this in 1931. It is uncannily prescient. The current threat of the available now seems to not just cloud legal discourse but all the human experience. Through our teaching, law librarians work to educate law students not to fall into the trap of the readily available.

I will be retired by the time you read this, knowing that I leave behind a fantastic group of professionals eager to continue to support the work of students and faculty. 

Selected list from January 2021 – October 2022

Abraham, David Law and Migration: Constants, Challenges, and Changes, in Migration theory: talking across Disciplines, 4th ed. 306 (Caroline B. Brettell & James F. Hollifield eds., 2023).

Group Rights and Individual Minority Rights in Immigrant Societies, Then and Now, 39 iMMigrants & Minorities 186 (2021).

Wege aus der Krise: Herkunft und Zukunft des Sozialdemokratischen Kapitalismus, 173 WZB-Mitteilungen 44 (Sept. 2021).

Book Review, 45 ethnic & racial stuD 1536 (2022) (reviewing Jonathan Fox & lev topor, Why Do people DiscriMinate against JeWs? (2021)).

Alfieri, Anthony V. Racial Trauma in Civil Rights Representation, 120 Mich l rev. 1701 (2022) (with Angela Onwuachi-Willig).

Race, Legal Representation, and Lawyer Ethics, in the oxForD hanDBook oF race anD laW in the uniteD states ch. 22 (Online ed.) (Devon Carbado, Emily Houh, & Khiara Bridges eds., 2022).

(Re)framing Race in Civil Rights Lawyering, 130 Yale L.J. 2052 (2021) (with Angela Onwuachi-Willig).

Bettinger-Lopez, Caroline S.

The Duty to Protect Survivors of Gender-Based Violence in the Age of Covid-19 an Expanded Human Rights Framework, 29 U. Mia int'l & coMp l rev. 235 (2022) (with R. Denisse Cordova Montes & Maxwell Zoberman).

A Client's Crisis Becomes a Legal Crisis: A Domestic Violence Ruling Goes Global, in crisis laWyering: eFFective legal aDvocacy in eMergency situations 13 (Ray Brescia & Eric K. Stearn eds., 2021).

Improving Law Enforcement Responses to Gender-Based Violence: Domestic and International Perspectives in hanDBook oF policing, coMMunication, anD society 297 (Howard Giles, Edward R. Maguire & Shawn L. Hill eds., 2021) (with Tamar Ezer).

Blatt, William

The Power of Presence in Socratic Teaching: The Effect of Substituting Videoconferencing for In-Person Classes, 70 J. legal eDuc. 284 (2021).

Bratton, William corporate Finance, cases anD Materials, 9th ed. (West Academic 2021).

Team Production Revisited, 74 vanD l rev. 1539 (2021).

Reconsidering the Evolutionary Erosion Account of Corporate Fiduciary Law, 76 Bus laW. 1157 (2021).

Campos, Sergio J. Due Process Alignment in Mass Restructurings, 91 ForDhaM l rev. 325 (2022) (with Samir D. Parikh).

Class Actions and the and the "Day in Court" Ideal: Class Actions as Collective Power Against Subordination in a guiDe to civil proceDure: integrating critical legal perspectives 332 (Brooke Coleman, et al. eds., 2022).

Cherdack, Melanie Trading in the Time of COVID: A Robinhood Bromance, 28 PIABA B.J. 159 (2021).

Coker, Donna K. Restorative Approaches to Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Harm, 36 ohio st. J. Disp resol 591 (2021).

Copeland, Charlton C. Building a Litigation Coalition: Business Interests and the Transformation of Personal Jurisdiction, in a guiDe to civil proceDure: integrating critical legal perspectives 193 (Brooke Coleman, et al. eds., 2022).

Book Review, 45 ethnic & racial stuD 526 (2022) (reviewing allan colBern & s karthick raMakrishnan, citiZenship reiMagineD: a neW FraMeWork For state rights in the uniteD states (2021)).

Corbin, Caroline M. First aMenDMent laW: cases anD Materials 4th ed. (Aspen Publishing 2022) (with Ronald Krotoszynski, Jr., Timothy Zick & Lyrissa C. Barnett Lidsky).

The Pledge of Allegiance Revisited: Speech Rights vs Parental Rights, 97 inD l.J. 967 (2022).

Government Speech and First Amendment Capture, 107 va l rev online 224 (2021).

The Unconstitutionality of Government Propaganda, 81 ohio st l.J. 815 (2020), in the First aMenDMent laW hanDBook, 2021-2022 ed. 585 (Rodney A. Smolla ed., 2021).

Cordova Montes, R. Denisse

The Duty to Protect Survivors of Gender-Based Violence in the Age of Covid-19 an Expanded Human Rights Framework, 29 u. Mia int'l & coMp l rev. 235 (2022) (with Caroline Bettinger-Lopez & Maxwell Zoberman).

Cortada, Xavier Underwater Homeowners Association: Using Socially Engaged Art to Problem-Solve in an Imperilled, Polarized and Imperfect World, 3 J. env't MeDia 163 (2022) (with Adam Roberti & Ryan Deering).

Climate Mobility and the Pandemic: Art-Science Lessons for Societal Resilience, 11 WorlD art 277 (2021) (with Katharine Mach, et al.).

Eichhorn, Scott What Makes SPACs So Special?, 29 piaBa B.J. 319 (2022).

Elmore, Andrew Franchisor Power as Employment Control, 109 cal l rev. 1317 (2021) (with Kati Griffith).

Labor's New Localism, 95 s cal l rev. 253 (2021).

Regulating Mobility Limitations in the Franchise Relationship as Dependency in the Joint Employment Doctrine, 55 u c. Davis l rev. 1227 (2021).

Ezer, Tamar International Law & COVID-19 Symposium, 29 u. Mia int'l & coMp l rev. 141 (2022) (with Joseph Candelaria & Gita Howard).

Localizing Human Rights in Cities, 31 s cal rev l. & soc. Just. 67 (2022).

Teaching Written Advocacy in a Law Clinic Setting, 27 clinical l rev 167 (2021).

Challenging Domestic Injustice Through International Human Rights Advocacy: Addressing Homelessness in the United States, 42 carDoZo l rev. 913 (2021) (with Eric Tars, David Stuzin, Melanie Ng & Conor Arevalo).

Improving Law Enforcement Responses to Gender-Based Violence: Domestic and International Perspectives in hanDBook oF policing, coMMunication, anD society 297 (Howard Giles, Edward R. Maguire & Shawn L. Hill eds., 2021) (with Caroline BettingerLopez).

Fleming, Abigail Armoring the Just Transition Activist, 25 rich puB int l rev. 172 (2022) (with Catherine Dremluk).

Franks, Mary Anne The Free Speech Industry, in social MeDia, FreeDoM oF speech, anD the Future oF our DeMocracy 65 (Lee Bollinger & Geoffrey Stone eds., 2022).

Speaking of Women: Feminism and Free Speech, FeMinist Frictions: key concepts anD controversies (2022), http://signsjournal.org/franks/.

Beyond the Public Square: Imagining Digital Democracy, 131 yale l.J. F 427 (2021).

Book Talk: The Cult of the Constitution, 13 conlaWnoW 33 (2021).

Frohock, Christina M. Special Matters: Filtering Privileged Materials in Federal Prosecutions, 49 aM. J. criM l. 63 (2021).

Froomkin, A. Michael The Virtual Law School, 2.0, 70 J. legal eDuc. 348 (2021).

Graham, Michael H. hanDBook oF FeDeral eviDence, 9th ed. (Thomson Reuters 2020, with 2022 supplements).

grahaM's hanDBook oF illinois eviDence, 2022 ed. (Wolters Kluwer Publishing). FeDeral rules oF eviDence in a nutshell, 11th ed. (West Academic Publishing 2021).

exaM pro: eviDence (essay), 5th ed. (West Academic Publishing 2021).

exaM pro: eviDence (oBJective), 7th ed. (West Academic Publishing 2021).

Haack, Susan Justice, Truth, and Proof: Not So Simple, After All, 6 ius DictuM 7 (2022).

Bilimciliğin Altı Belirtisi/Six Signs of Scientism, 5 soFist 209 (2022).

Universities' Research Imperative: Paying the Price for Perverse Incentives, against proFessional philosophy, Sept. 25, 2022.

Scientistic Philosophy, No; Scientific Philosophy, Yes, 15 Pizhūhishʹhā-Y FalsaFī (Tabrīz.) 4 (2021).

Philosophy as a Profession, and as a Calling, VIII syZetesis 33 (2021).

Hill, Frances R. taxation oF exeMpt organiZations (Thomson Reuters, 2002, with 2022 Supplements) (with Douglas M. Mancino).

Partisan Gerrymanders: Upholding Voter Suppression and Choosing Judicial Abdication in Rucho v. Common Cause, 75 u. Mia l rev 459 (2021).

Iglesias, Elizabeth M. Trump's Insurrection: Pandemic Violence, Presidential Incitement and the Republican Guarantee, 11 u. Mia race & soc. Just l rev. 7 (2021).

Latham, Robert Child Maltreatment in the Time of COVID-19: Changes in the Florida Foster Care System Surrounding the COVID-19 Safer-at-Home Order, 116 chilD aBuse & neglect 104945 (2021) (with Erica Musser & Cameron Riopelle).

Lave, Tamara R. sexual assault on caMpus DeFenDing Due process (Cambridge University Press 2022).

Blame the Victim: How Mistreatment by the State Is Used to Legitimize Police Violence, 87 Brook l rev 1161 (2022).

The Problem with Assumptions: Revisiting "The Dark Figure of Sexual Recidivism", 39 Behav sci. & l. 279 (2021) (with J.J. Prescott & Grady Bridges).

Levi, Lili

Racialized, Judaized, Feminized: Identity-based Attacks on the Press, 20 First aMenD l rev. 35 (2022).

Narine Weldon, Marcia Lessons Learned from Launching a Transactional Skills Program from Scratch, 23 transactions: tenn. J. Bus l 176 (2021) (with Paul Berkowitz, Daniel Novela & Michelle Pelletier).

Newman, John The Output-Welfare Fallacy: A Modern Antitrust Paradox, 107 ioWa l rev. 563 (2022).

Racist Antitrust, Antiracist Antitrust, 66 antitrust Bull. 384 (2021).

Reactionary Antitrust, in herBert hovenkaMp: the Dean oF aMerican antitrust laW liBer aMicoruM 73 (Nicholas Charbit & Sebastien Gachot eds., 2021).

Nickel, James W. Linkage Arguments for and Against Rights, 42 oxForD J. legal stuD. 27 (2022).

Okuno, Erin iMproving in-lieu Fee prograM iMpleMentation: long-terM ManageMent oF Mitigation sites (2021).

iMproving in-lieu Fee prograM iMpleMentation: Full cost accounting (2021).

iMproving in-lieu Fee prograM iMpleMentation: prograMMatic auDits (2021).

Reply to Bridgewater (2021), 'Response to Davies et al., 'Towards a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands', 72 Marine & FreshWater rsch. 1401 (2021) (with G. T. Davies, et al.).

Towards a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands, 72 Marine & FreshWater rsch. 593 (2021) (with G. T. Davies, et al.).

Owley, Jessica Adapting to 4 Degrees C World, 52 env't l rep. 10211 (2022) (with Karrigan Bork, et al.).

environMental laW, DisrupteD (Environmental Law Institute 2021) (edited with Keith H. Hirokawa).

Private Environmental Action as Disruptive Innovation, in environMental laW, DisrupteD 123 (Keith Hirokawa & Jessica Owley eds., 2021).

Environmental Law, Disrupted by COVID-19, in environMental laW DisrupteD 279 (Keith Hirokawa & Jessica Owley eds., 2021) (with Rebecca Bratspies, et al.).

Climate Mobility and the Pandemic: Art-Science Lessons for Societal Resilience, 11 WorlD art 277 (2021) (with Katharine Mach, et al.).

Climate-Induced Human Displacement and Conservation Lands, 58 houston l rev. 665 (2021).

Federal Land Conservation in Rural Areas, 86 Brook l rev. 839 (2021) (with Jess Phelps).

Private Confederate Monuments, 25 leWis & clark l rev. 253 (2021) (with Jess Phelps & Sean Hughes).

Rebuilding the Endangered Species Act: An Environmental Prospective, in enDangereD species act: laW policy anD perspective, 3rd ed. 461 (Don Baur & YaWei Li eds., 2021) (with Brett Hartl).

The Paris Agreement Compliance Mechanism: Beyond COP 26, 11 Wake Forest l rev online 147 (2021) (with Imad Antoine Ibrahim & Sandrine Maljean-Dubois).

Oxman, Bernard H. Choice of Forum for Settlement of Law of the Sea Disputes, in a BriDge over trouBleD Waters: Dispute resolution in the laW oF international Watercourses anD the laW oF the sea 83 (Helene Ruiz Fabri, et al. eds., 2021).

Parker, Kunal M.

The Rights of Noncitizens, in the Bill oF rights in MoDern aMerica 231 (David J. Bodenhamer & James W. Ely, Jr. eds., 2022).

Perlmutter, Bernard H. "Give Me My Allowance or I'll Run!"

Everyday Resistance by Foster Youth and Justice Outsourced, in Justice outsourceD: the therapeutic JurispruDence iMplications oF JuDicial Decision-Making

By non-JuDicial oFFicers 147 (Michael Perlin & Kelly Frailing eds., 2022).

Plasencia, Madeleine

So That Playing to Win Is Not Playing to Die: Constructing Legal Recourse for Athletes with Sickle Cell Trait Laboring in the Actor-Networks of the Brown Commons, in Dis/aBility in MeDia, laW anD history: intersectional, eMBoDieD anD socially constructeD? 220 (Micky Lee, Frank Rudy Cooper & Patricia Reeve eds., 2022).

COVID-19, Lying, Mask-less Exposures and Dis/ability During a Pandemic, 11 u. Mia race & soc Just l rev. 119 (2021).

Porras, Ileana

Appropriating Nature: Commerce, Property and the Commodification of Nature in the Law of Nations, in locating nature: Making anD unMaking international laW 111 (Usha Natarajan & Julia Dehm eds., 2022).

Portes, Alejandro Bilingualism and Achievement in the Spanish Second Generation: A Longitudinal Study, 45 ethnic & racial stuD. 1825 (2022) (with Brandon P. Martinez).

A Permanent Periphery: Caribbean Migration Flows and the World Economy, in cariBBean Migrations: the legacies oF colonialisM 8 (Anke Birkenmaier ed., 2021).

Special Section: Introduction to Legacies from Sociology's Past, 36 socio. F. 509 (2021).

A Cien Años de Weber: La Ciencia como Cocación y el Resurgimiento del Nacional-Populismo, 83 rev Mexicana De sociología 745 (2021).

Immigration and Robots: Is the Absence of Immigrants Linked to the Rise of Automation?, 44 ethnic & racial stuD. 2723 (2021) (with Larry Liu).

Reich, Jarrod thinking like a Writer: a laWyer's guiDe to eFFective Writing anD eDiting, 4th ed. (Practicing Law Institute 2021) (with Stephen V. Armstrong & Timothy Terrell).

Rogers, Scott L. the MinDFul laW stuDent: a MinDFulness in laW practice guiDe (Elgar Publishing 2022).

The Effects of Mindfulness Training on Working Memory Performance in High-Demand Cohorts: A MultiStudy Investigation, 6 J. cognitive enhanceMent 192 (2022) (with Amishi P. Jha, et al.).

Investigating the Impact of PeerTrainer Delivered Mindfulness Training on Cognitive Abilities and Psychological Health, 12 MinDFulness 2645 (2021) (with Ekaterina Denkova, et al.).

Rosen, Robert E. Critical Dialogue and Regulation: Learning from Engineering Mistakes, 48 transp l.J. 1 (2021).

Rueda-Saiz, Pablo Docket Selection and Judicial Responsiveness: The Use of AI in the Colombian Constitutional Court, 30 WM. & Mary Bill rts. J. 419 (2021).

Territory as a Victim of Armed Conflict, 15 int'l J. transitional Just. 210 (2021) (with Alexandra Huneeus).

Sawicki, Andres patent laW: an open-access caseBook (2021) (with Sarah Burstein & Sarah Rajec).

Fashion, Models, and Intellectual Property, 39 carDoZo arts & ent l.J 671 (2021).

Schard, Robin C. Competitive Intelligence, 2022 national legal research teach-in kit (2022).

Hachette Book Group v. Internet Archive: Is there a Better Way to Restore Balance in Copyright?, 24 internet reFerence serv. Q. 53 (2021). Scheffler, Gabriel Equality and Sufficiency in Health Care Reform, 81 MD l rev. 144 (2022).

Unrules, 73 stan l rev. 885 (2021) (with Cary Coglianese & Daniel Walters).

Sharpless, Rebecca A. Virus As Foreign Invader: U.S. Voters & the Immigration Debate, 75 u Mia l rev. 547 (2021).

Sites, Brian Informed Studying through Predictive Modeling: An MBE Regression Analysis of Bar Preparation and Curriculum Assessments, 39 Quinnipiac l rev. 461 (2021).

Stearns, Janet E. Inoculating the Next Generation of Lawyers: Mandating Substance Use and Mental Health Education for Law Students, 60 u louisville l rev 497 (2022).

Selected list from January 2021 – October 2022 continued

Exploring the Integration of Well-Being & Anti-Racism: Some Practical Lessons from the 2020-2021 School Year, insights FroM the FielD, Jan. 2022, at 22.

Revising the ABA Standards to Ensure Minimum Competency Including in Awareness of Health and Well-Being, 4 raising the Bar 5 (Spr. 2021).

Baseball & Balance: A Case Study in Advocating for Institutional Change, eQuipoise, Dec. 2021, at 7.

Stewart, Kele M. Re-Envisioning Child Well-Being: Dismantling the Inequitable Intersections Among Child Welfare, Juvenile Justice, and Education, 12 coluM. J. race & l. 1 (2022).

Toward More Effective Policy, Practice, and Research in Child Welfare and Education, in intersectionality in eDucation: toWarD More eQuitaBle policy, research, anD practice 43 (Wendy Cavendish & Jennifer F. Samson eds., 2021) (with Wendy Cavendish).

Stotzky, Irwin P.

The Fourth Amendment and the Supreme Court: Seizures, Hot Pursuits, the Community Caretaking Exception to the Warrant Requirement, and More, 37 civil rights litigation anD attorney Fees annual hanDBook 67 (Steven Saltzman ed., 2022).

Murder, Impunity, and the Rule of Law, 36 civil rights litigation anD attorney Fees annual hanDBook 375 (Steven Saltzman ed., 2021).

Jean v nelson: a civil rights revolution in iMMigration (Carolina Academic Press 2021).

Suman, Daniel O.

A Scientific Synthesis of Marine Protected Areas in the United States: Status and Recommendations, 9 Frontiers Marine sci. Art. 849927 (2022) (with Jenna Sullivan-Stack, et al.).

Prefácio, in 2 gestão aMBiental e sustentaBiliDaDe eM Áreas costeiras e Marinhas: conceitos e prÁticas xiii (Raquel Dezidério Souto ed., 2022).

Coastal Impacts of Climate Change, 52 env't l rep. 10169 (2022) (with Amy Reed, et al.).

Urice, Stephen K. Wills, trusts, anD estates: the essentials, 2d ed. (2021) (with Reid Kress Weisbord & David Horton).

Valdes, Francisco

The Slaughterhouse Cases, in critical race JuDgMents: reWritten u s court opinions on race anD the laW 118 (Bennett Capers, et al. eds., 2022).

Afterword: Latcrit@25 and Beyond, Part II-Challenges and/ as Opportunities: Centering "Hybridized" Advocacy Projects in Antisubordination Praxis to Connect Campuses and Communities for Material Long-Term Progress, 20 seattle J. soc. Just. 1053 (2022) (with Steven W. Bender & Jennifer Hill).

Two MustReads from Miami Law Faculty

THE PRESUMPTION: RACE AND INJUSTICE IN THE UNITED STATES

A Black man born today still has one chance in three of going to prison before he is 35. And Blacks are still shot by police in a glaringly disproportionate number. Professor Donald Jones argues in his new book that these patterns reflect a transhistorical “presumption”: a presumption of dangerousness or criminality.

The book traces the presumption to slavery, where courts explicitly used it to rationalize “the peculiar institution.” Jones shows how the “presumption” followed Blacks to the North and played a critical role in the ghettoization of Blacks during the era of segregation. Jones also shows how “the presumption” followed Blacks into court in cases such as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

Afterword: Latcrit@25 and BeyondOrganized Academic Activism and the Long Haul: Designing "Hybridized" Advocacy Projects for an Age of Global Disruption, Systemic Injustice, and Bottom-Up Progress, 99 Denv l rev. 773 (2022) (with Steven W. Bender & Jennifer Hill).

latcrit: FroM critical legal theory to acaDeMic activisM (NYU Press 2021) (with Steven W. Bender).

Widen, William H. Autonomous Vehicle Regulation & Trust: The Impact of Failures to Comply with Standards, 27 ucla J. l. & tech. 169 (2022) (with Phillip Koopman).

Ethics, Safety, and Autonomous Vehicles, 54 coMputer 28 (2021) (with Philip Koopman, Benjamin Kuipers & Marilyn Wolf).

SEXUAL ASSAULT ON CAMPUS: DEFENDING DUE PROCESS

BY TAMARA RICE LAVE

Campus sexual assault expert Professor Tamara Rice Lave weighs out the successes and failures of Title IX in her book “Sexual Assault on Campus: Defending Due Process.”

SexualAssaultonCampusgrapples with how to adjudicate sexual misconduct fairly for both victims and the accused. It critically assesses the extent of the problem before explaining why the criminal justice system has not responded adequately. It then traces how Title IX became the primary vehicle for combating campus sexual assault.

The book culminates in a critical, in-depth look at the Title IX regulations under former President Donald Trump’s administration with detailed recommendations for how the new regulations can be improved.

Law yer 2.0—

How Miami Law is Shaping the Next Generation of Attorneys in Business & Technology Law

One of the essential missions of the University of Miami School of Law is to educate and prepare future lawyers for the important real-world roles they will one day fill. For the past 10 to 12 years, the legal landscape has been changing and evolving quickly in business law, technology law, and the increasing overlap. As the University of Miami continues to look ahead to meet the needs of its students and the global community it serves, Miami Law professors—many of whom are recognized as leading scholars and practicing experts in their fields— offered their insights on issues the law is serving today, as well as the challenges for lawyers of tomorrow.

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

Though typically heralded as nextlevel solutions, robotics and artificial intelligence present many questions regarding legality. “The nature of technology is always changing,” said Professor A. Michael Froomkin, the Laurie Silvers and Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law. “It often takes multiple years for new ideas to work their way through the legal system.”

The shortcomings of AI are

downplayed in the name of progress. “AI has proven itself very effective at pattern recognition,” Froomkin said. “However, sometimes they spot patterns that aren’t really there.” While the former has valuable applications in situations such as aiding in diagnostic imaging for cancer and other conditions, the latter is problematic if it becomes an ethnic or racial bias in facial recognition or criminal behavior profiling.

AI also often lacks quality control over the data it provides and method of obtainment. “We all know our smartphones can and do spy on us, but we rarely think about how that data is collected, stored, processed, used, and even re-used,” said Froomkin. “The general public is only just waking up to this, but it is something that will need to be addressed.”

Similar concerns surround the emerging technology of autonomous vehicles, which Professor William H. Widen has been researching. His current work, often conducted jointly with engineering professor Philip Koopman at Carnegie Mellon University, represents some critical legal discourse in autonomous vehicle safety, ethics, and regulation.

“There is an important distinction between technology like an ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) such as adaptive cruise control, which helps a human operate a motor vehicle safely, and an ADS (Automated Driving System) which is a fully robotic solution within its operational design domain. The former uses human decisionmaking as part of its operation. The latter does not.” Like Froomkin, he believes the rush to market has meant sidestepping legalities. “It has led the automotive industry to largely selfregulate the testing and deployment

of autonomous vehicles because states and the federal government have yet to do so in any meaningful way.”

The answer, both professors agree, lies in cross-disciplinary understanding that works to demystify the technology processes at work. Widen suggests lawyers in this space learn to interact with engineers, so they can explain technology to decision makers who lack the appropriate background. Froomkin said that “future lawyers will need to understand the subtleties of the technology and the industry in order to shape legislation and regulations, and to represent both tech clients and those affected by them.”

Intellectual Property

Professor Andres Sawicki, who also serves as director of the Business of Innovation, Law, and Technology Concentration (BILT), says AI and robotics will soon need to answer a variety of complex questions associated with creative and ownership of creative goods. “Who really owns the product of algorithms?” he asks. “What’s more, what if the originating entity is, itself, an AI? It stands to change the nature of intellectual property law as we know it.”

He said there have been several big changes happening in the patent space during the last decade, and technology and software have long

been an odd fit for IP. Ownership of programming code could be covered by either copyright or patent—but there are problems with both. “Patents are a slow tool in a fast-moving business sector, and copyright isn’t designed to protect functional things.”

The Larry J. Hoffman, Greenberg Traurig Distinguished Professor Michele DeStefano believes the business applications of IP law are becoming increasingly important in today’s changing landscape, given the metaverse and non-fungible token marketplaces. “The real question is how do we make IP laws accessible in ways that democratize NFT marketplaces?” she said. “It shouldn’t be the case that IP protections extend only to those with expensive attorneys.”

For that reason, Sawicki urges lawyers of today and tomorrow to think critically about the role of IP in establishing business goals. “We tend to drift toward maximum assertion and maximum rights management as lawyers, but that approach may not be the best way to achieve objectives like growth and market share. Consider Tesla,” he said. “Could they have placed strict, lucrative IP protections around their technologies? Yes. Was it more helpful to their business to be the technology everyone could more easily

adopt? Also, yes. The best solution will always be one in which IP supports a business as opposed to limiting it.”

Civil Rights and Technology

As the law works to protect innovators and business professionals, it cannot ignore the needs of the greater public and the unique populations within it. Professor Mary Anne Franks is the Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair and is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights and technology. “We need to think about the consequences for technology when it’s used—or misused,” she said. “This is not simply about what the law said we can or can’t do; it’s about whether or not we’re marginalizing certain groups in digital spaces or through the adoption of certain technologies.”

She outlines how direct harassment in online communities and the aggregating and normalizing of radical groups are becoming persistent problems, but with little incentive for the technology industry to take responsibility for the role they play within them. “It’s more profitable for companies to not be accountable,” she said, “and we’ve seen that since the 1990s, any solution that rests on voluntary industry action has failed.”

Like Widen has observed with the automobile industry and autonomous vehicles, Franks suggests the answer may require creativity. “I encourage students to think about how law, technology, and policy can all work together to address needs like oversight, testing, and fairness. Sometimes it’s not a legal answer. It’s just as important to know the limits of the law and how justice can be achieved through other means, if necessary.”

Corporate Governance

Civil rights are not simply an individual concern; they are an essential corporate interest as well. Professor Marcia Narine Weldon serves as the Transactional Skills Program’s director and the Business Compliance & Sustainability Concentration faculty coordinator. She explains that environmental, social, and governance issues are taking front-and-center focus for many corporations. “Stakeholder capitalism is definitely becoming a priority, and companies are looking to lawyers to help them see beyond the transactional side of their businesses.”

She also said corporate and legal worlds are at a crossroads regarding digital currency and its cyber threats. “There are companies stockpiling crypto currency for ransomware demands and cyber threats, because it’s not a matter of if, but when The law has an opportunity to advise on how traditional and cryptocurrencies function, but only if banks, businesses, and attorneys come together to make long-term decisions based on legitimate knowledge.”

To that end, Weldon suggests the law may be called upon very soon to weigh in on jobs that do not yet exist. “UM's future undergraduate degree track in Innovative Technology Design could be a good place for promising lawyers to start,” she said. “It’s an interdisciplinary program that brings value to the education of our students by making sure they have the skills the future business world needs.”

DeStefano agrees. “I believe law school will need to adapt in the future so that lawyers and other legal professionals can be more innovative in how we deliver services. This is one of the ways in which Miami Law is constantly adapting so that our graduates serve clients well and relevantly.” 

Women Emerge from Miami Law

Ready to Lead (and shatter glass ceilings)

Carolyn Lamm walked into the conference room of a Manhattan law firm to begin negotiations over a large-scale merger and realized, yet again, that she was the only woman in the room.

It was the 1980s, so Lamm was used to being surrounded by male attorneys in blue suits and white shirts. And given the times, she was far too accustomed to what came next: one of the male attorneys asked Lamm if he could have some tea.

“I said, ‘I’m sure you can, but you can’t get it from me,’” said Lamm, J.D. ’73. “He was so discombobulated when we sat down at the table and saw that I was on the other side. It motivated me to want to crush him.”

Ever since Arabella Mansfield became the first American woman allowed to practice law in 1869, female attorneys in the United States have fought a neverending battle for equity in the legal profession. It wasn’t until 1928 that federal courts seated a female judge. It took another 50 years for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and another 40 years before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman on the Court.

When Lamm arrived at the University of Miami School of Law in 1970, she was one of only 10 women in the class of 376 students. But Lamm, now a partner at White & Case and a member of the University of Miami Board of Trustees, said the school quickly evolved after she graduated by accepting more female law students and preparing them to take on leadership roles.

ProducingWomenLeaders

By 1991, women made up 37% of 1L students. By 2001, the number had risen to 48%. And by 2021, women were 57% of the school’s 393 1L students.

Those numbers have translated into more women in leadership positions throughout Miami Law. The editors-inchief of all five of the school’s law reviews were women in the 2021 – 2022 school year. The Dean’s Advisory Council, the Law Alumni Association Board of Directors, and the Young Alumni Committee were all led by women. And two of Miami Law’s past four deans have been women.

That evolution has resulted in the unprecedented feat of three female Miami Law graduates serving as president of the American Bar Association: Lamm from 2009 – 2010, Hilarie Bass, J.D. ’81, from 2017 – 2018, and Deborah Enix-Ross, J.D. ’81, who began her term in August.

“That’s the environment that these successful women are coming out of,” said Laurie Silvers, B.A. ’74, J.D. ’77, and chair of the University of Miami Board of Trustees.

Getting there wasn’t easy.

TacklingChallengesAlongtheWay

Ask any female attorney, and they’ll likely have a story about the subtle and often blatant examples of gender bias they’ve had to deal with in their careers.

Each of the three Miami Law ABA presidents has faced it. They’ve seen their colleagues repeatedly passed up for plum assignments or promotions. They’ve heard the snide comments and endured unequal pay.

And still, they hear the age-old argument that women can’t juggle their responsibilities as mothers with their careers.

“Women consistently say that the day they became a parent, it affected negatively the kind of work they were given, their opportunities to work with top clients, their compensation, all because of this inherent assumption that they were less committed to their profession from that point forward,” said Bass, the immediate past chair of the University of Miami Board of Trustees. “Men, on the other hand, as soon as they become a parent, they’re perceived to be a breadwinner, they’re going to work harder than ever because now they have a family to support.”

When Lamm graduated from Miami Law and the U.S.

Department of Justice hired her, she was one of 20 women out of approximately 400 lawyers in the civil division of the main DOJ. And Bass is tired of being the “first female” to do things, like when she became the first woman to head the global litigation department at Greenberg Traurig.

“I’m really happy that it’s going to be harder and harder to be the first of anything,” Enix-Ross said.

Enix-Ross has dealt with the additional struggle of being a Black female attorney in an industry dominated by white men. And she’s felt that bias at every step of the way.

After graduating from Miami Law in 1981, she returned to her native New York and passed the bar exam on her first try. When she sat for her interview with the New York Character and Fitness Committee, Enix-Ross told them she was interested in international law, hoping to land a job at a global New York firm.

“And they said, ‘Why don’t you do legal aid?’” she said. “It felt to me like, ‘You’re Black, why aren’t you doing civil rights law or legal aid or legal services?’ I remember thinking, ‘I can tell them what I’m really thinking and maybe not pass this character and fitness exam,’ or I can say, ‘Thank you for that suggestion.’”

She chose the latter and passed the state bar, but sure enough, every international law firm turned Enix-Ross down. She was on the dean’s list as an undergraduate at the University of Miami, graduated from Miami Law, and held a certificate in international law from the London School of Economics. However, she couldn’t get a single big firm to hire her.

After each failed interview, she struggled to understand why.

“I would say, ‘Is it because I’m Black, is it because I’m a woman, or I just didn’t meet the needs of the people?’” she said.

Eventually, she accepted the job the bar officials suggested, working for MFY Legal Services in New York City. It took her seven years to finally get a job in her field when the U.S. Council for International Business hired her.

Finally in her element, she rose quickly. Enix-Ross served as in-house counsel and director of legal affairs and was named the American representative to the International Chamber of Commerce International Court of Arbitration. She was finally there. Her dream of practicing international law and traveling worldwide was coming true.

Her first trip was to Paris, where she was to meet members of the American legal community and practice her French.

"Miami really opened their doors to women in a significant way," Lamm said. "Women felt comfortable there and it gave them a good basis to work from."

But when she arrived at a social club to meet her American counterparts, the man at the door refused to let her in.

“Now I’m standing there and thinking, ‘Is this because I’m Black or because I’m a woman?’” she said.

The club was all-male. After insisting that people were waiting to meet her, she begrudgingly allowed the staff to walk her through a backdoor and up a staircase through the kitchen.

The Americans she finally met were enraged and refused to return to the club again until it changed its policy. But the incident served as yet another example of Enix-Ross enduring the kind of treatment her white, male colleagues have never felt.

AHistoryofGreatWomeninLaw

Despite the hurdles, Miami Law’s women have been excelling for decades.

In 1949, Jeanette Ozanne Smith started her teaching career at Miami Law, becoming the sixth female law professor in the country. She was joined a few years later by M. Minnette Massey, who became the eighth. They became part of the “First Wave” of 14 women who elbowed their way into the male-dominated world of American law school professors.

Smith taught at Miami Law for 27 years, and Massey became the school’s first female interim dean from 1962 – 1965.

A decade later, Miami Law chose Soia Mentschikoff as the first full-term female dean of Miami Law. She had already broken ground on several fronts by being the first female law professor at both the University of Chicago Law School and Harvard Law School and serving as a principal drafter of the Uniform Criminal Code. She was the first woman to be seriously considered for a U.S. Supreme Court seat and became known as the “first woman everything.”

Silvers said Dean Mentschikoff served as an invaluable mentor to her during her time as a student. The two would talk about the law, her classes, and Silvers’ more prominent role in the world after she graduated. Silvers was shocked that “somebody at that level would take an interest in this little law student.”

“She took a liking to me, was very influential, and did a lot of prepping me to be my best self, to not think of myself as a female going to law school to get a degree, but as an

intelligent person going to law school to get a degree,” said Silvers. Silvers went on to become an entertainment lawyer, media entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

Over the years, five of the school's 16 deans have been women. Female graduates have worked at all levels of government, served as federal and state judges, and risen through the ranks of domestic and international businesses. They've served as advocates for refugees and asylum-seekers and helped protect the constantly imperiled Everglades.

There are too many to name but a few illustrate Miami Law's exceptional female leaders. In April, Yvette Ostolaza, B.A. '85, J.D. '92, became chair of the management committee at Sidley Austin, making her one of only a handful of women to hold such a role at a global law firm. Personal injury lawyer Julie Braman Kane, J.D. ’93, is a recent past president of the American Association for Justice, the world’s leading trial bar.

The Honorable Bertila Soto, J.D. ’89, became the first Hispanic Chief Judge in the county and was the first female Cuban American Chief Judge on the 11th Circuit in MiamiDade. The Honorable Laurel M. Isicoff, J.D. ’82, is the first woman chief judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Patricia Ireland, J.D. '75, served as the National Organization of Women president for 10 years. In July, DeAnna Allen, J.D. '96, became the president of the National Association of Women Lawyers, following in the footsteps of Dorian Denberg, J.D. ’92, who served as president of NAWL in 2010 – 2011.

“As a new member of the Miami Law community, I am extremely proud of our history of women leading the way,” said Miami Law Dean David Yellen, who began his term in July. “From our three ABA Presidents to our five deans, Miami Law has been graced by so many women who are great lawyers and great leaders.”

HelpingtheNextGeneration

Miami Law’s female graduates have tried to make climbing the legal ladder a little easier for the next generation. Lamm, an international arbitration expert, created the Carolyn Lamm/White & Case Scholarship to help students trying to get a postgraduate degree in the White & Case International Arbitration LL.M. , and six of the past seven recipients have been women.

Bass has donated so much money to scholarships at Miami Law that the school renamed the brick courtyard at the center of the law campus “The Bass Bricks.”

"You choose your battles," she said. "You stand up where you can. You make changes where you can. And sometimes, maturity dictates that you don’t fight every battle."

Silvers has donated several scholarship funds at Miami Law and mentors young women in high school. Once a month, Silvers visits Spanish River Community High School in Boca Raton and counsels female students on their schooling, dreams of college, and life goals.

“It’s more than just writing a check to some wonderful charity,” Silvers said. “When you can be in someone’s life, coach them, and help turn them around, it’s so fulfilling.”

As each has risen, they’ve also used their increasing power to demand more women in the legal profession, from associate level to the C-suite.

As a board member of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration, Lamm brought together representatives of the major international arbitration institutions globally on a task force that ICCA co-sponsored to produce a 227-page report on gender diversity within that field. The report found that after years of work to diversify its ranks, women still comprised only 21% of the international arbitrators appointed in 2019.

But Lamm said the true power of that report was creating a roadmap for female attorneys trying to break into that field.

And as a partner at White & Case, she has ensured that her teams of attorneys include many women.

“I try to work with the best,” she said. “I really think women have an obligation to help other women, to help other women have an easier time moving forward.”

When Enix-Ross was named the American representative to the International Court of Arbitration—the first for a Black woman—she remembers the first time she was asked to suggest an arbitrator for a case. A colleague handed her the pre-drawn list of recommendations.

“The list might’ve had 30 names on it, but there were no women,” she said.

She changed that and has tried to hire more women at each career step. As president of the ABA, she isn’t shy about saying that diversity will be a significant factor when making the hundreds of committee appointments within the association.

She’s already named Roula Allouch, the daughter of Syrian immigrants, to head the ABA’s Center for Human Rights.

“She wears the hijab, she’s young, she’s dynamic,” EnixRoss said. “She is a rising star, and I cannot tell you how good it feels to play a small part in supporting her.”

Bass, the Miami Law grad who headed the ABA from 2017 – 2018, has taken her commitment to diversify the legal profession to a career-defining level. As president of the association, she created the “Presidential Initiative on Achieving Long-Term Careers for Women in Law,” which has led to a vast body of research understanding the problem and charting paths to fix it.

Then, after 39 years at Greenberg Traurig, where she rose from being Mel Greenberg’s mentee to co-president of one of the biggest law firms in the world, she left to start the Bass Institute for Diversity and Inclusion.

As the president and founder of the institute, Bass shows law firms how to change their hiring and retention practices to remove the implicit (and explicit) bias that continues to harm females and other minorities in the field. She works directly with young female attorneys to help them chart their courses. And she works to shift the profession away from “check the box” moves on diversity to actual, lasting changes.

OntheRoadTowardsEquity

Bass says female attorneys are in a much better position today, though still cognizant of how far they remain from true equity.

According to the ABA’s 2021 report on gender disparity— the fourth in a series of reports ordered by Bass—women make up 36% of lawyers nationwide and 47% of associates, but only 24% of partners. Women of color face an even harsher climate: they represent only 3% of all equity partners.

Even when women reach partner status, the ABA found that male equity partners earned 27% more than their female counterparts.

Along the way, women still face bias that drives many of them out of the profession entirely. They are less likely to be in the lead chair during jury trials or named the lead of corporate deals.

Bass estimates that 80% of annual reviews of women still mention their personality in some way, compared to less than 20% of male reviews. And despite all the advancements

of the #MeToo movement, the Women’s March, and other women’s rights drives, about 50% of female attorneys still say they’ve received unwanted sexual advances at work, according to the ABA.

According to Bass’ research, by age 50, nearly 75% of female attorneys have left the profession.

Bass said those numbers show a significant problem remaining in the quest for gender equity in the legal world. She said “superstars” like Lamm would always find a way to succeed.

“You’re not going to keep someone like that down,” Bass said. “But when you look at the average, hard-working lawyer who just wants to have a great career, then you really find very few women and a whole lot of men. We’ll know we’ve really arrived when the average, hard-working woman lawyer can do as well as the average, hard-working man.”

Lamm said she’s thrilled to see more female faces on the three-member panels that decide most international cases. But even then, she sees the ongoing problem.

“To see one appointed is a big thing,” she said. “To see multitudes, that’s not always the case. There are a lot of things in terms of life and in terms of business that still need to progress.”

Bass said some law firms have decided on their own to diversify their leadership, and others are forced. Many firms had to address the raging pay disparity between men and women. Larger clients have demanded that their law firms increase the number of women and minorities in their upper ranks, even requiring diversity numbers for specific teams working their accounts.

But even with that pressure, Bass said the number of women at the top of law firms has leveled off or even begun to shrink in recent years.

Enix-Ross looks at the landscape for women in her field, and she remains conflicted.

She thinks back to her time at Miami Law when she was one of just two Black women in her class, paying for her tuition and books with small donations from her church back in her hometown of Harlem. But then she considers her success. She ponders the success of her other Black classmate, Teretha Lundy Thomas, who served as an administrative judge on the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida for over 25 years. She praises the historic ascension of Justice Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

“We should be careful to stop and take a moment to reflect on how far we’ve come, gain some energy, and then press forward,” she said.

And then she smiles. 

"We now know what it takes for women to be successful. We now know what law firms need to do to ensure they’re being supportive of women," Bass said. "But it starts with a commitment from senior leadership. Unless it’s there, it’s all words on a page."

NEW

DEAN

Brings Wealth of Knowledge and Experience to Miami Law

DAVID YELLEN

had every excuse to start slowing down.

The 65-year-old father of three and grandfather of three has already had a very successful and wide-ranging career in law and higher education.

As a lawyer, Yellen argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, served as counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and worked for many years in reforming the country’s criminal justice system. As an administrator, he served as the dean of Hofstra University and Loyola University Chicago’s law schools, and as president of Marist College. He was frequently recognized as one of the most influential people in legal education.

“Absolutely nothing left to prove,” said Dan Rodriguez, a professor and former dean of the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. “He doesn’t need to do anything more to get on the Mount Rushmore of deans.”

Yellen was firmly ensconced in his role as CEO of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, an independent research center at the University of Denver that works nationally to improve the effectiveness of and access to the civil justice system. Then the University of Miami School of Law came calling.

“Being an academic leader, whether dean or provost or president, I’ve always analogized to being a legislative leader,” he said. “It’s not like being a CEO. You have to articulate a vision, build consensus, navigate competing interests and factions at times, and build from there. I hope I know how to talk to people across the institution from students, staff, faculty, alumni, the university leaders, and build as much consensus as is humanly possible.”

During the interview process, he spoke about the changes he implemented during his previous stints as dean. He talked about his leadership style, which features more listening than talking. He spoke about the future of legal education, the need for more diversity and experiential learning, and the expanded role that Miami Law can play in South Florida and worldwide.

Sergio Campos, a civil procedure professor at Miami Law and a search committee member, said Yellen’s resume and performance throughout the arduous interview process separated him from the field.

“He’s what we need right now,” Campos said. “You have this feeling that everything is going to be just fine.”

Officially appointed in July, Yellen spent the summer transitioning to his new home in Miami.

In between packing and Zoom meetings, he read Ada Ferrer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Cuba: An American History” to start learning about the Cuban American community in Miami.

He has a long list of ideas for Miami Law, including expanding practical training for law students, growing programs in health law, focusing on international law and programs for non-lawyers, and shoring up the fundraising necessary to support.

But Yellen made clear that his first job on campus would be to get to know all of the people important to the school’s success.

“Being an academic leader, whether dean or provost or president, I’ve always analogized to being a legislative leader,” he said. “It’s not like being a CEO. You have to articulate a vision, build consensus, navigate competing interests and factions at times, and build from there. I hope I know how to talk to people across the institution from students, staff, faculty, alumni, the university leaders, and build as much consensus as is humanly possible.”

GROWING UP IN JERSEY

Born and brought up in New Jersey, Yellen’s grandparents were Jewish refugees who emigrated from eastern Europe to New York City in the early 1900s. One grandfather owned a butcher shop for decades, and the other led a more “eclectic” life that featured time as a horse jockey, a professional boxer, and a vaudeville tap dancer before settling into a job at a clothing store.

His parents, Arnold and Beverly, led a typical middleclass life. Arnold Yellen spent most of his career in the insurance business. Beverly Yellen rose from a secretary to

a marketing manager at a company that sold calendars with daily inspirational messages and other business supplies.

They started their family young. David Yellen was born a day after his mother’s 21st birthday, and his brother Howard Yellen came three years later.

“They really grew up as parents,” David Yellen said. “I got to see them grow and evolve with adulthood as their careers developed.” His parents were “really ahead of their time,” with his mother working throughout his childhood and a father who did everything with his boys, from Yankees and Giants games for their birthdays to teaching them to body surf.

Beverly Yellen was the reader, encouraging the boys to read and talk about the books afterward. That combination culminated at the dinner table, where the four Yellens would talk about movies, politics, books, and sports.

“They were pretty adult conversations,” Howard Yellen said. “We would talk about Watergate; we’d talk about politics. Ironically, what we didn’t talk about was, ‘What are you going to do with your life?’ My folks assumed that David and I would be successful in our own sense.”

David Yellen absorbed those lessons and put them to use throughout his 12 years in the New Jersey public school system. He excelled at sports—he threw a no-hitter in Little League, was a linebacker and captain of his high school football team, dabbled in track and field, and described himself as a “gym rat” who played pickup basketball well into his 40s.

But it was in the classroom where Yellen took off. He was president of the National Honor Society, excelled in his classes, and was accepted to Princeton University.

“David from the get-go was an extremely high achiever,” said Howard Yellen, who arrived at Paramus High School just after his brother went to college. Even though Howard Yellen went on to Vassar College and earned his J.D. from the UC Berkeley School of Law, he said his brother was “a hard act to follow.”

LAW SCHOOL AND MARRIAGE

Yellen graduated from Princeton and decided to do something different. He and a friend traveled the country in an old van, picking up work along the way to support themselves. He then worked in VISTA (the predecessor to today’s AmeriCorps), an organization that focused on litigation affecting children’s rights.

He then moved to Cornell Law School, earning his J.D. in 1984. But it was something else at Cornell that changed his life. He walked into a 1L contracts class and sat in the back as

usual. But the professor ordered everyone from the last three rows to sit up front, placing Yellen directly in the sights of Leslie Richards, his future wife.

The professor was “fierce, scary to a lot of people.” But Yellen happened to click with him, freeing Yellen to become an active, talkative member of the class, often volunteering to answer questions.

“Turns out Leslie liked the way this long, curly-haired guy in class answered questions and explained things,” Yellen said. “That turned out to be me. She sought me out even though she was out of my league as a prospective dating partner.”

They became study partners and became friends. Before long, they were dating. The connection was so clear that after graduation, when a big law firm in Omaha, Nebraska, offered Leslie a job, David followed her there. A year later, they were engaged and moved to Washington, D.C.

That started a 36-year marriage, and each made sacrifices for the other’s career. They moved from city to city, school to school, and ground through long commutes to ensure each could continue rising in their fields.

Leslie Richards-Yellen has been a law firm partner, principal, and associate general counsel at the Vanguard Group and is currently the director of global diversity and inclusion at Debevoise & Plimpton, an international law firm based in New York City. She also served as president of the prestigious National Association of Women Lawyers.

Yellen laughs when talking about their differences. She’s the more “dynamic” one, he the more laid back one. She was the disciplinarian, he the more encouraging one. And then there’s Leslie’s background: her mother was an African American, and her father was born and brought up in Bolivia.

“On the surface, we’re very different. We come from different parts of the country, have different racial and ethnic backgrounds, different religions,” Yellen said. “But obviously, we had an awful lot in common in terms of values and approach to life.”

“I definitely felt we’ve always been one of those couples where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

Leslie and David have three daughters: Jordan, 33, is a lawyer and mother of two young boys; Meredith, 32, is a physician, and mother of one; and Bailey, 28, is pursuing a Ph.D. in history at Columbia University.

Everyone who knows Yellen knows that nothing is more important to him than his family. He is known to interrupt almost anything when his daughters call, to check to make sure it’s nothing urgent.

LIFE AS AN ATTORNEY

After finishing a clerkship in Nebraska, Yellen got a job at a Washington boutique litigation firm headed by the U.S. attorney in D.C. during the Watergate scandal. He then moved into government work, serving as counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

Working inside and outside the government gave Yellen a unique perspective that he capitalized on after Congress implemented the nation’s first federal sentencing guidelines.

Before that time, federal sentencing was a crapshoot where judges would impose whatever sentences they wanted, varying wildly from district to district. But with the passage of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, a new field of law suddenly opened. Working with no case law or precedents, Yellen and a few legal experts jumped into that void and started writing about how a uniform system should look.

Marc Miller became one of those early pioneers by cocreating the Federal Sentencing Reporter, which served as a repository for the writings of Yellen and others.

“This is a defining generation of scholars,” said Miller, now the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law dean. “They helped build the field.”

Yellen wrote about all aspects of the new regime, including what kinds of evidence could, and should, be introduced in the sentencing phase of trials. He argued that evidence that hadn’t been proven in the trial phase shouldn’t be introduced.

“David’s always had a fantastic balance of policy—politics if you will—to the theoretical work,” Miller said. “Among his special gifts is seeing and articulating that interplay.”

CHANGING THE GAME

After clerking, private practice, and working for the House Judiciary Committee, Yellen began his academic career in 1988 at Hofstra Law School. In addition to teaching and writing, he remained active in criminal justice and sentencing reform. Through volunteer work with the Families Against Mandatory Minimums organization, he wound up arguing a federal sentencing case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

He was appointed dean of Hofstra in 2001 and served

“That’s the problem with being far ahead of your time: people think you’re crazy, and sometimes you are,” Yellen said. “But every new idea has to have some early founders who are going to be, by definition, outside of the mainstream.”

for three years. While dean, he had the unique experience of parasailing with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was teaching in Hofstra’s summer program in Nice, France, when she decided to go on the high-flying adventure.

In 2005, Yellen moved to Chicago to take the helm of Loyola University Chicago School of Law. There, according to his colleagues and other law school deans, is where Yellen truly set himself apart.

Loyola Law School had already experimented with innovative programs by offering master’s degrees for non-J.D.

students in the fields of health, business, and child law. Yellen decided to take those programs online.

The move came as a shock to many in the legal profession. Law schools didn’t need the added revenue because they were reveling in historically high numbers of applicants—over 100,000 a year at the time. Michael Kaufman, who was Yellen’s associate dean for 11 years, said part of the criticism was that putting law school classes online would diminish or cheapen the quality of the product.

“It took a lot of courage to think about taking a risk that

could flop,” said Kaufman, who succeeded Yellen as dean of Loyola’s law school and is now dean of the Santa Clara University School of Law. “But he saw a market for it. He saw an opportunity to build on the strengths of the school, to make those programs accessible and affordable to people outside of Chicago.”

The move worked. Within a few years, law schools were emulating Yellen’s program. Kaufman said Loyola now has more online master’s students than J.D. students.

“I certainly benefited as dean from looking at what was happening across town,” said Rodriguez of Northwestern’s law school, which adopted its version of an online master’s program years later.

Yellen admits he was nervous about the transition.

“That’s the problem with being far ahead of your time: people think you’re crazy, and sometimes you are,” Yellen said. “But every new idea has to have some early founders who are going to be, by definition, outside of the mainstream.”

Kaufman saw it another way.

“Everything he touched turned to gold,” Kaufman said. “It’s not because he was lucky. It was because he had this judgement and this perception about what was going to be a winner.”

DIVERSIFYING THE PROFESSION

Yellen’s fellow deans say there were non-academic moves that further set him apart.

When Rodriguez became dean at Northwestern’s law school in 2012, he got a phone call he didn’t expect. Yellen, dean at Loyola’s law school at the time, invited him to dinner.

The schools were constantly competing for funding and students. Still, Yellen brought Rodriguez and the deans of all seven law schools in Chicago together for dinner at McCormick & Schmick’s, an opportunity for them to socialize and discuss the broader issues affecting legal education.

“Because of that gesture, it made it easier to pick up the phone and call my new friend who was the dean at DePaul or the dean at the University of Chicago to ask for advice because we had broken bread together,” he said. “Any one of us could have done that, but he did.”

Yellen also placed a high priority on diversifying the faculty and student body at Loyola. In 2010, he recruited Josie Gough to become the school’s director of experiential learning, a role that evolved into the school’s first assistant dean for inclusion, diversity, and equity.

Kaufman said Yellen was ahead of the curve with that

decision and displayed a “sense of moral clarity” by pushing hard to bring more minority students, staff, and faculty into the school.

“This was way before George Floyd, way before it became the thing to do,” Kaufman said.

Yellen said he was reacting to an obvious gap in the legal field at the time. It was no secret that white men dominated law firms at the time and desperately needed more women and people from underrepresented backgrounds and cultures.

He also credits his wife for illuminating the path. Leslie Richards-Yellen was the chief diversity and inclusion officer at the Hinshaw & Culbertson law firm during most of his time at Loyola. She helped him understand the day-to-day process of making sustainable change.

But Yellen shudders when he hears Kaufman and others sing his praises.

“I wasn’t remotely alone among law school deans,” he said. “The vast majority of law school deans for a long time have been concerned, unhappy, embarrassed—pick any number of words—about lack of diversity in the legal profession. The challenge was finding the resources to do it right.”

BOLSTERING LEGAL EDUCATION

That broader responsibility to the legal profession helps explain why Yellen has chosen to take on so many additional roles.

While Yellen was still serving as dean at Loyola, the American Bar Association committee asked him to take on responsibility for reviewing the association’s law school accreditation standards and regulations. What Yellen described as a “service to the profession” was, in the words of Rodriguez, a “hugely controversial role” that pitted the committee members between the ABA and law schools around the country.

“You’re almost guaranteed to alienate people from a variety of perspectives because you can’t keep everybody happy,” Rodriguez said. “He didn’t get a feather in his cap, but it matters to the profession.”

Yellen used his position to advocate for eliminating the LSAT requirement for all law students, arguing that allowing schools to accept students based on their GRE scores or other metrics would open the field to a broader range of students without diminishing the standards of the profession. The ABA has just recently adopted that stance.

Yellen also pushed for more transparency into student debt and for more experiential learning requirements.

“It was a chance to give back to this world of legal education that means so much to me,” Yellen said.

Yellen left Loyola in 2016 and became president of Marist College. Over his three years there, he oversaw the development of plans for a new medical school, a new campus in Manhattan, and the college’s first-ever doctoral degree program.

Three years later, Yellen left Marist and took another job that allowed him to bolster legal education and Americans’ access to justice. At IAALS, he helped guide the institution in its quest to improve the U.S. legal system.

During that time, Yellen was performing yet another job to help the field—working on the re-accreditation of Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School—when he bumped into an old friend: Nell Newton.

Newton was the interim dean at Miami Law at the time, and she knew the school was looking for a full-time dean. She told him about the position and explained how Yellen would be the perfect fit for the school.

“The appeal was not just a great law school in a cool place, but one that was poised for a new chapter where what I’m good at and what I like to do in higher ed leadership might be a really good match,” he said.

TAKING THE REINS AT MIAMI LAW

Yellen says he needs to spend more time talking with faculty, staff, students, alumni, fundraisers, and others before he sets a long-range plan for Miami Law under his watch, but he has a few ideas in mind.

“In general terms, our job will be to enhance an already great program of education for our students, support the scholarship and public service by our faculty that sets this law school apart, build our reputation nationally and internationally, and grow our programmatic revenue and fundraising to pay for all of this,” he said.

He wants to bring an idea from Loyola and introduce master’s degree programs for non-lawyers. For example, given the stature of the Miller School of Medicine and its affiliation with the Jackson Health System, Yellen envisions a master’s degree in health law.

“That could be people who run hospital systems, where so much of what they do is complying with government regulation and litigation management,” he said. “I’m deeply convinced we have a real opportunity in the online space and non-degree lawyer programs.”

Yellen also wants to expand Miami Law’s international

law program. With the U.S. economy becoming more global by the day and Miami’s unique position as the gateway to the Americas (and beyond), he wants to explore ways to bolster that program to recruit more international students and provide a more robust learning experience for U.S. students seeking international work.

He also wants to learn more about the burgeoning tech scene in Miami to see if that’s an area where Miami Law could help train the next generation of tech lawyers.

All those plans are still very much in the idea phase, but one area he knows he wants to expand is experiential learning for 2L and 3L students. Yellen praised the 10 clinics already operating at UM but wants more simulation-based training on both the litigation and transactional sides. He wants to establish more externships, where students receive credit for their work for judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and notfor-profit organizations.

“Philosophically, I hope the day comes when every law student has a live-client clinical experience before they graduate,” he said. “I don’t necessarily expect to live long enough to see that, but that’s my aspiration.”

For now, Yellen is focusing on learning more about the U and its broader community. He’s also welcoming the rush of relatives planning trips to South Florida. 

“In general terms, our job will be to enhance an already great program of education for our students, support the scholarship and public service by our faculty that sets this law school apart, build our reputation nationally and internationally, and grow our programmatic revenue and fundraising to pay for all of this,” he said.

ALUMNI

Suggestions for Class Notes may be emailed to notes@law.miami.edu or submitted to alumni.law.miami.edu/class-notes

Making Human Resources an Instrument of Empowerment

NIKKI LANIER, J.D. ’95, WAS LIKE MANY OTHER KIDS GROWING UP, CONSTANTLY BEGGING HER PARENTS TO LET HER OUT OF THE HOUSE AND SKIP THE NEXT BORING DINNER PARTY. But in Lanier’s case, her father was an administrator at Hampton University in Virginia, her mother was chair of the English department, and dinner guests at their idyllic campus home included Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Toni Bambara, Amiri Baraka, and a slew of other artists, educators, and civil rights leaders.

“I’m in middle school. Are you kidding me? I’d rather be with my friends at the movies,” Lanier says now, laughing at her younger self.

As a student at the University of Miami School of Law, it wasn’t until years later that the lessons about racial inequality she overheard so often as a child finally took root. And that revelation came from an unlikely source: Professor Irwin P. Stotzky.

The longtime professor taught his students about his work representing Haitian migrants in South Florida, showing how those Black immigrants were treated so poorly compared to the open door provided to whiter Cubans. Stotzky showed Lanier in practical terms how a facially neutral government policy had been racially discriminatory.

“Listening to this Jewish white man talk about racism in ways that I’d never heard white people talk about it before, I don’t know, it sparked something in me that remains with me to this day,” Lanier said. “It awakened a fundamental understanding for me I hadn’t actually articulated on my own behalf: the tenuous nature of mattering while black.”

That awakening would become her life’s work. She was already active at Miami Law, writing for the school newsletter, participating in moot court, and serving as a member of the Society of Bar and Gavel, and the Black Law Students Association. But when she got her Juris Doctor in 1995, she finally knew what she wanted to do with it.

RE-ENVISIONING HR

At first, when she was a young associate at a firm in Boca Raton in the late 1990s, the companies she represented didn’t even know what they were supposed to be doing. Lanier walked her clients through the basics of harassment suits, discrimination suits, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

“Employers were still perplexed with how exactly to behave in the midst of difference, how does white behave with Black, how do men behave with women,” she said. “Equity wasn’t even on the scene. We didn’t have those words.”

Lanier would go on to change the hiring, firing, and compensation practices of some of the largest organizations in the country, showing them how to use human resources departments not as the “office police,” but as an instrument of empowerment.

Lanier served as the top

human resources official at Charter Schools USA in Florida and Maricopa Community Colleges in Arizona. She was a senior human resources executive at Phillip Morris and Georgia Pacific. Lanier was a senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. She became the youngest— and the first Black female—appointed to the position of Personnel Cabinet Secretary (the chief human resources officer) for the state of Kentucky.

In each case, Lanier said she was brought in as an “agent of change” to reorient each organization in a more equitable and modern direction. In some cases, that meant ordering regularly-scheduled performance reviews—and raises—to replace sporadic review systems that have historically left women and other minorities behind. In other cases, it meant redefining the mission of human resources departments by talking with employees—not managers—to create “mission vision values” that the entire department could follow.

More broadly, Lanier says she realized the workplace’s power to affect societal change.

“There’s something about what happens in the workplace that dictates how they go home and parent and what kind of spouse they show up to be and

how they care for their family and their community,” she said.

BACK TO HER ROOTS

After 25 years of serving in various public and private sector positions, Lanier realized it was time for a change. It was 2020, the world was still grappling with COVID-19, and she was struggling to cope with the wave of shootings that sparked a new wave of civil rights protests around the country. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery.

“Something inside of me honestly died,” she said.

So, in 2021, the married, working mother left her position at the Federal Reserve Bank and started her own racial equity advisory firm, Harper Slade. She continues to help companies improve working conditions for all their employees by explicitly focusing on the work environment experienced by Black and brown employees. She has expanded her work as a speaker at conferences and events. But the firm’s name represents Lanier’s renewed focus on family and history.

The firm is named after her maternal grandmother, Ernestine Johnson Slade, and her paternal grandmother, Lenora Harper Robinson. They were working women involved in the civil rights movement, quietly assisting NAACP leaders with their office work.

“Both of my grandmothers were incredibly committed to their church, incredibly committed to God, incredibly focused on family, but very open and very transparent with their own struggles about how to feel about their home country and how their home country felt about them,” she said.

Lanier is carrying on their work, one client at a time. 

NIKKI LANIER /// MAKING HUMAN RESOURCES AN INSTRUMENT OF EMPOWERMENT

“LISTENING TO THIS JEWISH WHITE MAN TALK ABOUT RACISM SPARKED SOMETHING IN ME…IT AWAKENED A FUNDAMENTAL UNDERSTANDING FOR ME I HADN’T ACTUALLY ARTICULATED ON MY OWN BEHALF: THE TENUOUS NATURE OF MATTERING WHILE BLACK.”

Alumnus Pilots One of Largest Aviation Litigation Portfolios in the Nation

STEVEN MARKS' FIRST AVIATION TRIAL WAS A DISASTER.

Marks, J.D. ’85, was fresh out of the University of Miami School of Law and struggling to make a mark working the leftover commercial cases his higherups at Podhurst Orseck sent his way. His office was a converted closet he shared with another young associate, the two of them splitting one phone, crammed between stacks of cleaning

supplies.

The case, Chason v. Bell, was supposed to be his breakthrough. A helicopter crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Martin County, killing the pilot, and seriously injuring two passengers. Marks' test-pilot father had taught him to fly by age 12, so Marks felt comfortable with the basic mechanics of an aircraft. He was confident he could pin the blame of the crash on a manufacturing defect.

But in the middle of the trial, Marks was handed a note informing

him his grandfather had died. He started crying uncontrollably, rushed out of the courtroom, and the trial was delayed so he could attend the funeral.

After the trial resumed, defense attorneys called a surprise witness. Marks was so enraged he lashed out at the judge, suddenly terrified he’d be held in criminal contempt (he was not). In the end, despite repeated assurances from a bailiff who had seen his share of jury trials, Marks lost.

“I was really devastated,” he said. Marks took the lessons he learned

from that case and quickly turned things around. He took another aviation crash case to trial and won. And then another. And then another.

“I must’ve had 40 victories in a row,” he said.

Ever since, Marks has established one of the biggest aviation litigation portfolios in the nation. He secured an industry-changing “nine-figure” settlement for the families of victims of SilkAir Flight 185, which crashed in Indonesia in 1997. During that trial, he parked the tail section of a Boeing 737 in front of the California courthouse for two months so jurors would see it every day.

Marks worked on Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde that ran over debris on a Paris runway during takeoff and crashed into a hotel in 2000, killing everyone aboard. He handled Metrojet Flight 9268, which was downed by a terrorist bomb minutes after taking off from Egypt in 2015, and Germanwings Flight 9525, which was crashed deliberately into a mountain in the French Alps in 2015. And he’s currently representing nearly 100 victims from two Boeing 737 Max crashes after a judge appointed him as one of three attorneys to lead the plaintiff’s executive committee.

Due to his expertise in complex, multi-party litigation, he was also tapped to serve on the executive committee for the NFL concussion litigation, helping to secure a $1 billion long-term settlement on behalf of thousands of retired players.

LESSONS LEARNED

Marks credits his time at Miami Law with the foundational learning that’s helped him achieve partner

status at Podhurst Orseck. During his time at Miami Law, Marks served as the editor-in-chief of the University of Miami Law Review and as a member of the Order of the Coif and the Society of Bar and Gavel. He has remained an active member of the UM community, serving on the Law Alumni Association board of directors and the Law School Dean’s Advisory Council.

His mother, a world-renowned artist, went to the University of Miami. His daughter is now going to UM. That’s why Marks views the university community as family.

“The university has been very, very good to me,” he said. “It gave me a career, gave me an opportunity to get a law degree, it gave me the good fortune to be editor (of the Law Review). Great years at UM.”

Marks ascribes his professional success to various factors, including a decision he made early on to ignore the common practice of trying aviation cases in federal court, opting for state courts instead. Too often, federal aviation cases became MDLs or consolidated federal actions. These procedures expand the number of plaintiffs (and attorneys) involved and dilute any one attorney’s ability to steer the legal strategy of each case.

“It’s litigation by committee and I just didn’t like it,” he said.

THE COMMON DENOMINATOR: VICTIMS

But Marks says his most valuable skill may be his ability to connect with grieving families. When airplanes crash, it has become common practice for the victims’ families to band together and interview different teams of lawyers. Marks isn’t ashamed to say that his emotional investment in each case helps him gain the trust of those victims.

“I do cry,” he said. “I cry in front of jurors. It’s real, it’s not an act.”

In some cases, the emotions overwhelm him. While visiting a woman in Orlando who lost her husband in an airplane crash, her 2- and 5-year-old daughters ran up to Marks screaming, “Are you getting daddy? Are you bringing daddy home?”

Two of Marks' four children were the same age at the time, and the thought of his children going through a similar ordeal tormented him so much that he stopped flying airplanes recreationally for several years.

“When you’re at trial for two to three months and stirring up all this emotion and meeting with widows every night, it’s tough to keep a center,” he said.

In some cases, however, the victims’ families have become lifelong friends.

“You forge these friendships and relationships that are just so rewarding,” he said. “Somehow, we struggled through it, and we value life, and you come to peace with the fact that there’s a tragedy and you’re doing good and helping people.

“You’re always on the right side because you’re on the victim’s side.” 

“THE UNIVERSITY HAS BEEN VERY, VERY GOOD TO ME,” HE SAID. “IT GAVE ME A CAREER, GAVE ME AN OPPORTUNITY TO GET A LAW DEGREE, IT GAVE ME THE GOOD FORTUNE TO BE EDITOR (OF THE LAW REVIEW). GREAT YEARS AT UM.”

Importance of Family Stability Propels Alumna to Become Go-To Manhattan Divorce Attorney

NANCY CHEMTOB, J.D. ’90 WAS JUST 13 YEARS OLD WHEN HER FATHER DIED. The family was living in Long Island, New York, and her mother was suddenly responsible for caring for two young daughters.

To do so, her mother turned a hobby into a business, running The New York Antique Almanac newspaper, which became the primary source of income for the family. Chemtob also had to pitch in, working as wait staff at a catering hall, making chocolate treats at a candy store, and working as a sales associate in a clothing store.

However agonizing that period was, Chemtob says the experience taught her the lessons she needed to become one of the leading divorce attorneys in New York. Watching her mother expand her tiny trade paper into a money-making publication delivered nationwide taught her the value of hard work and selfsufficiency.

“My mother wasn’t the breadwinner, and all of a sudden she was,” Chemtob said. “My mom made it very clear to my sister and me that you just need to rely on yourself, take care of yourself and your family.”

That period also showed Chemtob the importance of family stability, even though she learned the lesson only by losing hers. Now, whenever a client approaches her to initiate divorce proceedings, one of her first questions is always about the children.

“It was awkward being a young girl growing up without a father,” she said. “I just always had the sense of how important it was to make kids feel safe. I think that’s why I care so much about family outcomes.”

Put it all together, Chemtob has become one of the go-to divorce attorneys for Manhattan’s wealthiest clients. She estimates her average client has a net worth of $15 million, her top clients reaching $1 billion. She has handled groundbreaking cases, expanding fathers’ rights during divorces, helping LGTBQ+ couples grow their legal rights, and now navigating the confusing world of parental rights after families moved around the country, and the world, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

When asked how she has managed to thrive within the competitive, cutthroat world of the New York legal scene, Chemtob points south to her time at the University of Miami School of Law.

HER TIME IN THE SUN

After wading through the snow to earn her bachelor’s degree at Syracuse University, Chemtob figured Miami Law was an excellent next step, where she could earn her law degree while lounging under the South Florida sun. But she learned she wouldn’t be spending her days poolside in her first week.

“I realized I was in an incredibly

tough and academically challenging environment,” she said. “It was crazy times where people were ripping pages out of books. We would have a case study to do, you’d go to the library and the book wasn’t there. It was incredibly competitive.

“I literally never saw the pool,” she said.

Chemtob experienced another shock when she ended up in a courtroom litigating cases, something she never expected to do. Coming from a family of real estate attorneys—her father and sister both practiced in that field—she assumed she would follow that path. Her first experience in moot court at Miami Law drove that point home.

“I bombed,” she said. “I said, ‘May it please the court, my name is,’ and I froze. I thought (my partner) was going to kill me, thankfully she ended up graduating No. 2 in the class.”

But just as Chemtob was graduating in 1990, the real estate and stock markets crashed, prompting real estate firms to lay off attorneys, not hire them. Luckily, she worked for an uncle doing trusts and estates for a time, applied all over, and then landed in a New York employment firm litigating workers’ compensation cases.

“I would go to court in the morning, get 15 files and I had no idea

what I was doing in a courtroom,” she said. “I learned to litigate that way.”

CHARTING HER PATH

She did that for five years, building the experience, confidence, and connections she needed to start her firm Chemtob, Moss, Forman & Beyda. She has built up a massive list of wealthy clients, a list that has exploded during the pandemic.

Couples who spoke for maybe 20 minutes during a typical day were around each other 24/7. Parents realized they had drastically different views on raising their children. And while many used COVID-19 as an opportunity to reinvent themselves and their careers, some decided being married wasn’t part of that new life.

All told, Chemtob’s caseload increased 30% during the pandemic.

“I feel like everybody got divorced,” she said.

As the pandemic eases into an endemic, Chemtob is looking ahead to giving back to her law school. She wants to continue her work advocating for children’s mental health—she’s on the board of directors at Mount Sinai Children’s Center Foundation. And she remains active at Miami Law, serving on the Dean’s Advisory Council.

With one of her three sons recently moving to Miami, she wants to teach classes at Miami Law and start a family law clinic to give back to the school that got it all started for her.

“It’s really important to me because I’m so grateful to the law school and the education that I got there,” she said. 

“I REALIZED I WAS IN AN INCREDIBLY TOUGH AND ACADEMICALLY CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT… IT WAS INCREDIBLY COMPETITIVE… I LITERALLY NEVER SAW THE POOL.”

Superb ProtectsNegotiator the Interests of Clients, Community, and Family

As a student at the University of Miami School of Law, JORGE DIAZ-SILVEIRA, LIKE MOST OF HIS CLASSMATES, WANTED TO PROVE HIMSELF AND BE AT THE TOP OF HIS CLASS.

He excelled in the classroom and moot court but quickly realized he preferred negotiations over litigation. Diaz-Silveira had been surrounded by students who loved arguing and relished in heated debates over the most minor, insignificant aspects of a case.

“Most young lawyers think they must prevail on every point,” said Diaz-Silveira, J.D. ’88. “Everything’s an argument, a win.” The relentless bickering he observed in litigation was not his style. Diaz-Silveira gravitated toward transactional law and the art of negotiation. Armed

with a jovial personality, a sharp mind, and an effective presence, he has spent 34 years closing deals, settling contract disputes, and negotiating compromises both sides can stomach. He quickly grasps the “must-haves” and the “nice-to-haves” for his clients while always focusing on the final outcome.

“You have to be a zealous advocate and protect your client’s interest— that’s your obligation—but you also have to be sensitive to your client’s desire to close a transaction,” he said. “I’m relentless in pursuit of my client’s objective but I realize that clients are almost always better served if you work things out.”

After graduating, Diaz-Silveira worked at Steel Hector & Davis (now Squire Sanders), focusing on real estate and construction deals. He represented banks, local and national developers, construction companies, and other businesses, garnering the confidence of many of the firm’s largest clients. At 29 years old, he became one of the youngest lawyers ever to make partner. However, as his roster of clients grew, he and a core group of friends and colleagues concluded that they had to go bigger.

“We decided we wanted to take our practice to another level, to a global level, and work on the largest deals both in the U.S. and internationally,” Diaz-Silveira said. “Steel Hector was a phenomenal firm, but it wasn’t a global law firm.”

So, Diaz-Silveira and four others approached Hogan Lovells, formerly Hogan & Hartson, and made their pitch. It worked. They moved in January 2002 and became significant players in a big firm.

Diaz-Silveira took on more

prominent clients, including several of the largest developers of renewable energy in the world, a slew of Latin American government entities responsible for large-scale infrastructure projects, including oil, gas, and transportation. There were also several conglomerates in Latin America, including one of the largest distributors of food and beverages in Latin America, a global cement company, a major fully integrated sugar company, and several multinational companies developing private-public partnership projects in the U.S. and Latin America.

Diaz-Silveira is also the managing partner of Hogan Lovells’ Miami office and practice area leader (Americas) for the infrastructure, energy, resources, and projects practice. The other four members of his group have also remained and risen the ranks.

“The five of us have a bond beyond the practice of law. We were very close friends,” Diaz-Silveira said. “That special bond has lasted over 30 years, and we continue to support each other both personally and in business.”

Even sweeter for Diaz-Silveira is that four of the five are graduates of Miami Law. “The only negative about (Jose Valdivia), he graduated from Notre Dame,” he joked.

Now 57, Diaz-Silveira is just starting to think about how he wants to spend his remaining years as a lawyer.

He insists he enjoys the practice of law too much to consider slowing down. Still, part of his plan is to continue helping the next generation

of attorneys, especially those from immigrant families like his. DiazSilveira’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba, driving him to become a board member of the Hispanic National Bar Foundation, an organization that helps young Hispanics on their path to becoming lawyers.

“I haven’t forgotten that I’m a firstgeneration American,” he said. Although his paternal grandfather was a Supreme Court Justice in Cuba and his maternal grandfather a lawyer, diplomat, and author, “we started from zero. The Hispanic National Bar Foundation is my way of helping people who if given the opportunity will excel as lawyers.”

He also wants to spend time teaching, possibly at Miami Law, where he has served as a guest lecturer.

However, more than anything, Diaz-Silveira knows that most of his time will be spent focused on his family and his faith. He has five children and has been married to his wife, Renee, for over 25 years. He has been a parishioner at Epiphany Catholic Church for half a century and it is where he and Renee remain active, serving as eucharistic ministers and Jorge as an advocate.

Despite an intense work schedule requiring him to fly over 100,000 miles a year, he always rushes back to his family.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s just us on weekends,” he said. “Although helping others is incredibly important and rewarding, I firmly believe that the most important obligation you have is your children. To me that’s critical because at the end of the day, that’s your legacy and if you succeed at raising good children you leave the world a better place.”

“I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN THAT I’M A FIRST-GENERATION AMERICAN...”

Former Prosecutor Takes IP Know-How to Open Museum of Graffiti

ALLISON FREIDIN’S CORNER OF THE STATE ATTORNEY’S OFFICE IN MIAMI WAS HARD TO MISS.

While other prosecutors hung their law school diplomas and vacation pictures in their offices, graffiti and other urban art plastered Freidin’s walls, desk, and door. Raw, colorful

pieces by Miami-based urban artists Neith Nevelson, Atomik, and Ahol Sniffs Glue screamed out amid the bland, antiseptic halls.

“People would come to visit my office because they wanted to see the art,” said Freidin, B.S. ’07, J.D. ’10. “They would say, ‘Oh my god, it’s like a gallery in here.’ And I would say, ‘Just wait.’”

Sure enough, Freidin left her job prosecuting criminals and teamed up

with a graffiti historian to open the Museum of Graffiti, a first-of-its-kind tribute to urban culture and street art. The museum is now a cornerstone of Wynwood, not only surviving the COVID-19 pandemic but expanding to accommodate more shows, exhibits, and guests.

While the jump from a Miami Law-trained prosecutor to graffiti art museum co-founder may seem

jarring, it was, in retrospect, a natural transition for Freidin based on two factors.

The first was her lifelong love of the art form. The third-generation Miamian, who grew up in Coconut Grove, was fascinated by street art form from an early age. She would spend time with artists, learning the message behind their work and realizing there was a void in the art world for street artists to have their voices heard.

The second revelation came six years into her career as a prosecutor. Freidin was assigned to the Northside District of the Miami-Dade Police Department’s office near Liberty City as a founding member of the department’s Anti-Gun Violence Task Force. There, she helped institute a data-driven approach to shootings, pioneering the now-common practice of police departments using historical shooting trends to anticipate where the next wave of shootings would be.

But then, in quick succession, two police officers she had been working closely with were shot in the line of duty.

“Neither of them died, but as the danger levels rose and as I looked into the future for myself in terms of personal growth, those two factors came together,” she said. “Art was always 100% my passion. I just wasn’t really sure how to make that transition and how I was going to be able to make a living and continue to benefit my community.”

THE BIRTH OF A MUSEUM

Remaining in an urban environment was essential to Freidin. She started by representing graffiti artists. And then, she met Alan Ket, a New York-based graffiti artist, historian,

and documentarian who was in town to work at Wynwood Walls during Art Basel in 2017.

The two bonded over their shared disappointment over what was happening to Wynwood. The neighborhood had grown rapidly and become an international destination but didn’t have any place where visitors could learn about the art they saw and its history.

“Ket is a graffiti artist, so he gets to see this all from a very insider’s perspective. I came with a goal of service to the community and urban art education,” Freidin said. “We fit together like peas and carrots.”

They developed their concept, but the hard part came with building a museum from scratch. Neither had experience doing so, and nobody had ever built a museum specifically about graffiti before, so the two had to make things up as they went.

That’s when Freidin fell back on the lessons she learned at Miami Law.

She credited Professor Ben Depoorter, her intellectual property professor, for using pop culture and current-day IP cases to show his students the real-life application of complex federal copyright laws. The museum launched with officially licensed, limited-edition merchandise, loan agreements for six-figure artwork,

and consignment contracts for artists selling their works.

“I use the knowledge I learned in IP every single day when I do my job, whether it’s getting Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 waivers for murals or looking at licensing deals with our corporate sponsors,” she said.

They’ve even helped her navigate the emerging world of NFTs.

“The standard principles of IP apply even in the metaverse,” she said. She recently co-founded Glyphic NFTs, a company to help street artists leverage generative WEB3 technology to create non-fungible tokens.

ENDURING THE PANDEMIC

Holding onto the museum throughout the pandemic took a different kind of work. Freidin and Ket had to shut down like everybody else during the 2020 quarantine, so they got creative.

They created digital galleries for artists. They broadcasted art talks, made downloadable coloring books for children, and opened an online gift shop. When businesses slowly started reopening, they helped visitors customize their masks with spray paint.

“The DIY spirit of this museum is very consistent with aspects of the art form itself,” she said.

Freidin still worries about the future of Wynwood, about developers bowling over the very art that gave birth to the neighborhood. “There is no art preservation in Miami’s arts district,” she said.

She hopes the museum and her broader work elevating local artists and female entrepreneurs can help save the art she’s been admiring all her life.

“The common thread of everything that I’ve done is to be of service to my community,” she said. 

“I USE THE KNOWLEDGE I LEARNED IN IP EVERY SINGLE DAY WHEN I DO MY JOB, WHETHER IT’S GETTING VISUAL ARTISTS RIGHTS ACT OF 1990 WAIVERS FOR MURALS OR LOOKING AT LICENSING DEALS WITH OUR CORPORATE SPONSORS,” SHE SAID.

My Fellow ’Cane Lawyers

I am truly honored to serve as this year’s president of the University of Miami Law Alumni Association and look forward to seeing our vibrant alumni community engaged.

This is an exciting time to be a Miami Law alumnus. Dean David Yellen officially joined us on July 1, 2022. We want to welcome him to the U and look forward to working with him and the alumni leadership to continue to advance our alma mater’s visibility and prominence.

Miami Law creates leaders. Congratulations to Gary Lesser, J.D. ’92, on his installation as president of The Florida Bar during the 2022 June annual convention. I also want to congratulate Deborah Enix-Ross, B.A. ’78, J.D. ’81 for being installed as president of the American Bar Association at the ABA’s annual meeting in Chicago this past August. Alumni from all over the country attended our alumni’s reception in Chicago as we presented Deborah with the Alumnus of Distinction Award. We are so proud of Deborah, who follows previous University of Miami School of Law alumni Carolyn Lamm, J.D. ’73 and Hilarie Bass, J.D. ’81, who also served as ABA presidents. We are the only law school in the country that can boast it has produced three ABA presidents. In addition, congratulations to DeAnna Allen, J.D. ’96, who was named in July as the president of the National Association of Women Lawyers.

My mission this year is to engage all alumni. We have so much to offer each other, the School of Law, and its students. Meet up with old friends and make new connections this year. Consider mentoring law students to help them achieve their dreams of success. You will not have a more rewarding experience. Further, you may meet the next rising star for your law firm or business practice.

I encourage all alumni to participate in our activities. As always, we held our annual golf tournament during Homecoming, and we honored Laurence “Lonny” Rose for his years of service and accomplishments in building the law school’s preeminent Litigation Skills Program. We also honored UM football legends David Heffernan, A.B. ’85, J.D. ’91, and Alonzo Highsmith, B.B.A. ’87, for their athletic efforts on behalf of the U. Classes and affinity groups were reunited and reconnected. We also gathered for our 73rd Morning Spirits and Homecoming Breakfast, where we heard from an amazing panel and our new dean.

It is a special time for the University of Miami and our alumni. We live in one of the most exciting and influential cities in the country. The technology and business communities in Miami continue to grow, placing Miami-Dade County, the City of Miami, and Miami Law on a steep upward trajectory.

Please make sure you are a part of all the activities. Get involved, share your time and talents with us, and become part of the Miami Law Alumni Association community. Help us identify and mentor the next generation of leaders.

Finally, I’d like to encourage you to contribute to our Ever Brighter Campaign to any extent. The resources you provide allow the University of Miami to continue to give students the opportunity to attend our alma mater and enhance our community and profession.

Please feel free to contact me to share your thoughts and ideas on how the Law Alumni Association can enhance its service to you, the law school, its students, or the community. I look forward to hearing from you and seeing everyone at our upcoming activities.

Very truly yours,

The Future of Miami Law Hor i zons: Brighter

“The University of Miami has come a long way since ‘Sunshine U’ a few decades ago,” said Aaron Podhurst, the honorary chair of the School of Law’s fundraising committee. Together with vice chairs, Peter Prieto, J.D. ’85; Carolyn B. Lamm, J.D. ’73; and Harley Tropin, J.D. ’77, the committee is helping Miami Law move forward on its goals of the Ever Brighter Campaign.

“What started as a higher education destination for students in Miami and the State of Florida has now become the university of choice for students and faculty from all over the country and across the globe.” He ticks off the many elements of the university that are now considered the best in the world: the Bascom Palmer Institute, the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Frost School of Music, the School of Architecture, and the Miller School of Medicine are all recognized as leaders and innovators in their field. “The law school and other programs are poised to do the same. That’s what this campaign is about,” he said.

Podhurst has been involved with the University of Miami for nearly 20 years and currently serves on the Board

of Trustees. He has been proud to see the university rise in acclaim by continuing to achieve on state and national levels. Though he is a graduate of Columbia Law, his firm, Podhurst Orseck, has four partners and several associates who are Miami Law graduates.

He is quick to point out that his firm is not alone in that regard. “The truth is that the top members of each graduating class have become extremely successful in whatever they have chosen to pursue, both in South Florida and beyond.” He goes on to list presidents of the American Bar Association, partners for global business and criminal defense firms, and critical leadership at major companies such as Lennar, Dacra, Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, and others. “My own grandson is a Miami Law graduate and is now clerking for a federal judge,” he said. “This is a top-quality education that is creating and shaping the leaders of tomorrow. Our distinguished alumni are proof of that.”

Ever Brighter is designed to continue the pursuit of that kind of leadership by providing resources to attract the best and brightest students and faculty from around the world. Podhurst said, “It is crucial that we fund scholarships to the fullest extent possible. We want to be able to take any student

“The more we invest in the university, the more we’ll be able to accomplish on behalf of our students and the entire community we serve,” said Podhurst.

on merit, simply because we can. That is how we can make sure the top candidates in the country can and will choose Miami Law. It’s the character of the students that make the law school what it is.”

However, the campaign isn’t simply about money. It’s about involvement, excitement, and participation from the university’s alumni, community, and friends. As every degree track gains prominence and recognition, interest grows, as does support. Each year the university welcomes approximately 2,250 new first-year students. For the past few years, there have been close to 55,000 applicants.

“The more we invest in the university, the more we’ll be able to accomplish on behalf of our students and the entire community we serve,” said Podhurst.

For Ever Brighter specifically, the law school’s fundraising committee focuses on several initiatives, all aimed at increasing the school’s stature, enhancing the student experience, and readying the next generation of lawyers to address society’s challenges. The moot court program is among the top 20 in the country and on the rise. Miami Law’s various clinics and practicums assist in issues ranging from bankruptcy, business, and investor rights to child welfare, housing, and human rights. Students in these programs are given the opportunity to advocate on actual cases and learn how to problem solve and work with clients in real-world conditions. Ever Brighter seeks to expand and enrich these programs while pioneering others like them.

The campaign also seeks to build stronger ties to the

community so that students may benefit from the involvement of practicing attorneys, legal professionals, businesses, and leaders in local, regional, and national government, whether as visiting professors, guest lecturers, adjunct professors, or part of the Miami Law network. “Truly, the connections made through affiliation with Miami Law are as meaningful and important as any professional relationship. We must keep working to ensure that graduating Miami Law is a mark of distinction in every field.”

To that end, the chairman points out that Ever Brighter isn’t simply a local fundraising campaign but a global one.

“There are three great cities in the U.S.,” he said. “The global opinion says New York, Los Angeles, and Miami are where everything is happening right now. The University of Miami has the chance to be the city’s landmark destination for education and the advancement of all areas of law. However, as a private university, we must generate support from the inside out. The whole world is looking to Miami right now, why shouldn’t they also be looking to the University of Miami as well?”

As of January 2023, the School of Law raised just over $49 million towards its $50 million fundraising goal. As the Ever Brighter campaign continues in its public fundraising phase, Miami Law is ready to leverage its great start into exciting results. “The university already has a fine board, administration, and president,” Podhurst said, “and our new dean at the law school, David Yellen, is an esteemed legal scholar who has tremendous vision for what comes next.”

MOVING TALENT FORWARD WITH ENDOWED CHAIRS AND PROFESSORSHIPS

In higher education, the strength and prominence of a program are often a direct reflection of its faculty. For the University of Miami School of Law, attracting the top minds from across multiple areas of law has earned the school national and international recognition. In March 2022, Miami Law was ranked #6 in Most Diverse Faculty and #9 on the Top Law Schools in the Southeast list by The Princeton Review as part of their 2022 report. The law school’s broad clinical law program is also considered among the country’s top-tier practical externship experiences, with cases heard at local, state, and federal levels.

Such accolades are essential faculty recruitment tools, but the school’s collection of endowed chairs and professorships are equally compelling. There are currently eight chairs and professorships, all of which were established through the generosity of Miami Law alumni:

¡ Laurie Silvers and Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law held by Professor A. Michael Froomkin

¡ Judge A. Jay Cristol Professor of Bankruptcy Law held by Professor Andrew B. Dawson

¡ de la Cruz/Mentschikoff Chair in Law and Economics held by Professor William W. Bratton

¡ Larry J. Hoffman, Greenberg Traurig Distinguished Professor in the Business of Law held by Professor Michele DeStefano

¡ Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair held by Professor Mary Anne Franks

¡ Richard A. Hausler Professor of Law held by Professor Bernard H. Oxman

¡ M. Minnette Massey Professor of Law held by Dean David Yellen

¡ The Robert C. Josefsberg Endowed Chair in Criminal Justice Advocacy held by Professor Scott Sundby

“In addition to recognizing the contributions a particular faculty member has made to the university and the legal

profession, the chairs and professorships at the University of Miami enable a collaboration between the practice of law and the education of aspiring lawyers,” said DeStefano, who was awarded her professorship in 2019. “There needs to be more synergy between academia and practice so we can train our lawyers, create and fund new programs, and encourage new educational opportunities, research, and writing. Chairs and professorships form a symbiotic relationship [with the university] that only enhances the law marketplace by developing lawyers who know how the practice of law truly works.”

Franks agrees and believes the chairs and professorships serve an additional purpose.

“It shows the university appreciates and acknowledges a certain type of work,” she said. “This is meaningful because it means research or study is supported and celebrated for the nature of scholarly inquiry, not simply about popularity. It communicates to students that there is value to hard work and achievement within the field.”

Chairs and professorships can be incredibly effective ways for universities and donors to highlight and demonstrate diversity within the faculty, Franks said. In particular, when a university’s chairs are held by individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, it signals to students and the broader community that the institution values excellence, not limited by gender, race, or class.

Franks’ perspective is echoed by Froomkin, who said endowed chairs and professorships should not be underestimated when it comes to remaining competitive with other top law schools around the country.

“Some law schools have numerous chairs and professorships,” he said. “The University of Miami has several, but it would be nice to see that grow. Clearly, if someone holds a chair or professorship with one university, they typically want something comparable should they take a position at another university. A chair can also be an inducement to moving for someone who does not currently hold a chair or professorship elsewhere. It’s a way of not only attracting, but also retaining the best teaching talent. It’s quite possibly one of the most powerful contributions alumni or the community can make toward the university.”

While Miami Law’s chairs and professorships have tremendous value for those who hold them, it is often an even-greater honor for those who establish them.

“I can personally remember what it meant to me as a student to learn from high-caliber professionals and educators,” recalls Laurie Silvers, two-time UM alumna, current chair of both the Dean’s Advisory Council for the School of Law and the University of Miami Board of Trustees, and donor of the Laurie Silvers and Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law.

“For me, it was Soia Mentschikoff, who was not only a giant in the field and dean of the school of law while I was there, but she was also an amazing teacher who actually enjoyed teaching,” Silvers said. “She made a point of making sure I knew I had the strength and capacity to succeed. Having someone of that stature speak to me and encourage me was profoundly inspiring.”

Silvers said the chance to pass on similar experiences to future students was a key reason for endowing the professorship co-named for her and her husband. “I’m very excited to see what Professor Froomkin has been bringing to the university. He’s a genius and pioneer in artificial intelligence and the law and this professorship has allowed us to be supportive in ways a single person rarely gets the chance to do. I may only be one person, but through this endowment we get to see positive impacts for thousands of students through Professor Froomkin’s work.”

Similar motivations were behind the Hon. A. Jay Cristol’s decision to create the professorship of bankruptcy law named in his honor. “The University of Miami has been wonderful to me throughout the years,” he said. Cristol was the research editor for the law review while he was a student at Miami Law, and he now serves as an adjunct professor and recently retired as Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Emeritus for the Southern District of Florida. “I wanted very much to give back to the school that prepared me for the incredible life I’ve had. That takes professors with a passion for what they do, and it is my hope this professorship provides exactly that for many years to come.”

The chairs and professorships are also ways to leave a legacy with the University of Miami School of Law, echoed DeStefano and Franks.

“Larry Hoffman is a respected authority in business of law, and became so by working from a business mindset,” said

DeStefano. “To see my own work in expanding client-attorney privilege, examining where innovation and business intersect, litigation funding, and other areas be mentioned in connection with this chair is humbling. It inspires me to keep working to bring continued recognition to the impressive career and purpose of the person for whom the chair is named.”

“Giving a chair invites donors and alumni to reflect on who they are and what kind of stories they wish to tell about their breadth of work, why they did it, and how they see that story continuing,” said Franks. “In my own experience, being awarded this chair provided an occasion to look deeply at Michael Klein’s life and work—the causes he’s championed, the civil rights issues and artistic endeavors he’s supported. This chair gives me an opportunity to honor his work and hopefully serve as a similar example in my own areas of expertise and advocacy.”

Silvers also reiterates that alumni and donor support make possible chairs, professorships, and the Miami Law experience possible.

“Both the university and the law school welcome anyone who wants to get involved. They want you to see and be part of what they’re doing. They’re open to ideas. They understand and appreciate the value of relationships,” Silvers said. “Speak with the dean. Attend events. Participate in lectures. Mentor. It’s all about whatever your passion is and the area of law in which you want to make a difference. Sponsoring a chair or professorship is a way to stay involved long-term, while also pursuing other opportunities.

“I’ve found that the more you know about what’s happening at the University and where it’s headed, the more you want to be involved in whatever way you can. That’s the real strength of Miami Law—its people,” Silvers said. 

“I wanted very much to give back to the school that prepared me for the incredible life I’ve had. That takes professors with a passion for what they do, and it is my hope this professorship provides exactly that for many years to come.” Hon. A. Jay Cristol

“In addition to recognizing the contributions a particular faculty member has made to the university and the legal profession, the chairs and professorships…enable a collaboration between the practice of law and the education of aspiring lawyers.”

Professor DeStefano

generous lumnus’giftcreates A endows

obert “Bob” Josefsberg is widely known for his advocacy skills, professional civility, and compassion for the underdog. Now, Josefsberg’s deep commitment to criminal justice will inspire Miami Law students, thanks to a generous donation from David C. Humphreys, J.D. ’83, and his wife Debra, to establish The Robert C. Josefsberg Endowed Chair in Criminal Justice Advocacy.

“Bob is the type of effective advocate Miami Law students should aspire to emulate,” said Humphreys, who is the chairman and CEO of TAMKO Building Products LLC, a Midwest manufacturing company. “In the criminal defense world, Bob has repeatedly shown his commitment to fighting for a client’s personal liberty—the most important thing in their lives. We are very pleased that Bob has so graciously agreed to have this chair bear his name.”

Thanking David and Debra Humphreys for endowing the new chair, Miami Law Dean David Yellen said, “Your gift will help us advance the quality and reputation of the law school and contribute to creating a fairer criminal justice system. Every endowed chair is vital to the future of our school.”

Reflecting on his legal and

&

business career, Humphreys said Miami Law gave him powerful analytic skills for examining the potential risks and rewards of important decisions. “My legal training played a big role in my business career, and I would encourage other business executives to support Miami Law,” he said.

A DISTINGUISHED CAREER

With a distinguished legal career spanning six decades, Josefsberg has represented many celebrities, including Jim Morrison, the famous Doors singer who was charged with indecent exposure after a 1969 Coconut Grove concert. But the 84-year-old attorney is even more proud of his work on behalf of pro bono clients, such as a Black high school student pulled over by police while driving in a white neighborhood. “We were able to avoid a conviction, allowing him to keep his college scholarship, and keep his life moving ahead on a positive track,” Josefsberg said.

As a 42-year partner at Podhurst Orseck law firm, Josefsberg handles the firm’s white-collar criminal defense work, as well as commercial cases. Through the years, he has been widely recognized for his legal skills and dedication to upholding and promoting the highest standards of legal professionalism.

In his early life, Josefsberg learned the importance of connecting with people from all walks of life. “I take great pride in building relationships

which has been a major part of who I am. I enjoy helping people and feel privileged to be able to do so.”

CONNECTING TO MIAMI LAW

After graduating from Yale Law School in 1962, Josefsberg came to Miami and practiced with the late Walter Beckham, Jr., who mentored him and later served as professor and assistant dean at Miami Law. Josefsberg became a federal prosecutor before returning to private practice. During 1980, he served as general counsel to Florida Governor Bob Graham.

Josefsberg has been a guest lecturer at Miami Law for many years and served as co-chair of the Miami Law Mock Trial teams. His law firm hosts the annual Miami Law forum on class actions. His daughter, Karen Ladis, J.D. ’90, is a Miami Law alumna and member of the Law Alumni Association board.

GIVING BACK

In 1983, Humphreys was a 3L student enrolled in a clinical internship program in the Dade County Public Defender’s Office. “When we heard that Bob Josefsberg was in a felony trial, several of us ran over to the courtroom to watch him in action,” he recalled. “Bob was a very effective advocate for an elderly client who had been accused of assault on a neighbor. He conducted the cross-examination in a very professional manner without being confrontational and achieved an acquittal. I could tell

The Robert C. Josefsberg Endowed Chair in Criminal Justice Advocacy

he was an outstanding lawyer with tremendous integrity.”

Josefsberg later took on a case for Humphreys, who recalled, “When I thanked Bob for his steadfast support, he told me, ‘I hope someday you will do the same for someone else who needs help.’ Since then, I have tried to live up to his high expectations.”

Humphreys was born in Joplin, Missouri, where his grandfather founded TAMKO Building Products in 1944. His father expanded the company’s markets in the 1960s and ’70s, but Humphreys chose a legal career and enrolled at Miami Law. “Miami Law offered me a chance to grow and learn within a very different cultural environment,” he said. “I enjoyed law school, learning from great teachers like Beckham and Irwin Stotzky, professor of criminal procedure, and took advantage of the Dade County Public Defender’s internship program. These experiences changed my worldview and my life.”

After graduation, Humphreys practiced insurance defense in Joplin before moving to New York, where he earned a graduate degree in tax law and practiced corporate tax at Davis Polk & Wardwell’s New York and Paris offices. In 1989, his father asked him to come home and join TAMKO as general counsel. When his father died four years later, Humphreys took over the leadership of the company’s operations, while becoming increasingly involved in philanthropic causes, such as founding

the Thomas Jefferson Independent Day School in Joplin.

When a deadly tornado devastated Joplin in 2011, David and Debra Humphreys helped search for victims, donated to relief organizations, provided financial assistance to TAMKO employees, and housed two families who had lost their homes. More recently, they have been active in restoring historic homes in Joplin.

As a major donor to Miami Law, Humphreys is grateful to be able to

enhance the school’s criminal justice advocacy program. “I think we should all feel a sense of duty to help other people,” he said. “Bob Josefsberg is a great example for students seeking to put that philosophy into action and defend people who really need a champion.”

In November 2022 Miami Law Professor Scott Sundby was named the inaugural holder of The Robert C. Josefsberg Endowed Chair in Criminal Justice Advocacy. His investiture will be held on March 24, 2023. 

SCHOOL OF LAW RECEIVES

Million from Board of Trustees Chair Laurie Silvers and Husband Mitchell Rubenstein

aurie Silvers, J.D. ’77, learned the art of analysis in law school. Her favorite activity during her threeyear legal education? Reading Supreme Court briefs and deconstructing the arguments.

After she graduated, Silvers parlayed her knack for detailed examination into a brilliant career in communications law, then went on to become a savvy entrepreneur, building a media conglomerate of radio, TV, cable, and internet and founding what would become one of cable television’s most popular networks: the SyFy Channel.

Along the way, she never forgot to pay it forward, giving generously to the university she describes as having a “profound influence on her life.”

Now, the double University of Miami alumna and current chair of the institution’s board of trustees has once again made a substantial contribution to her alma mater. Silvers, along with her husband, Mitchell Rubenstein, has donated $2.5 million to the University’s School of Law.

The gift is part of the new fundraising initiative Ever Brighter: The Campaign for Our Next Century. The most ambitious in the University’s history, the campaign already has raised more than $1.8 billion toward its $2.5 billion goal and is set to end in 2025, when the University celebrates its centennial.

“One of our most distinguished alumni, Laurie has long known that higher education is a pathway to achievement and has strived through her illustrious service to the U to extend opportunities to others,” said President Julio Frenk. “We are grateful for Laurie and Mitchell’s generous gift, which will help ensure that the School of Law excels at a time in history when the nation’s legal system is facing some of its greatest challenges.”

Josh Friedman, senior vice president for development and alumni relations, echoed Frenk’s sentiments. “We are so grateful to Laurie and Mitch for stepping forward as we unveil our Ever Brighter campaign publicly,” Friedman said. “Their continued generosity is an expression of their own gratitude for the influence this University had in their lives and an investment in future generations to experience the benefits of a University of Miami education.”

The donation is an example of Silvers and Rubenstein’s largesse to the University over the years. Their generosity created an endowed distinguished

professorship and created student scholarships, including one for students committed to public service. The Laurie Silvers and Mitchell Rubenstein Hall, which houses some of the school’s award-winning clinics, is named in their honor.

“This is my way of giving back and saying thanks for the education I received at Miami Law, which has helped me achieve so much,” said Silvers, who also studied psychology, political science, and philosophy as an undergraduate at the University, of her latest contribution.

Silvers is co-CEO of Hollywood. com, the majority owner of four Florida FM radio stations, and a co-founder and the majority owner of the global esports organization Misfits Gaming Group—which also includes the Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, and Cleveland Browns as minority owners. Based in South Florida, MGG competes in some of the most successful video game titles worldwide and is a permanent partner in three franchised esports leagues.

The former chair of Miami PBS station Channel 2 and co-chair of South Florida PBS, Silvers also accomplished what others had failed to do for 20 years: She oversaw the merger of Miami and Palm Beach County’s PBS stations, creating South

Florida PBS, the seventh largest PBS station in the country.

“Indeed, I credit a lot of what I’ve been able to accomplish in my professional career to the education that I received at the University of Miami, both as an undergraduate and as a law school student,” Silvers pointed out. “It is out of an abundance of appreciation for and a recognition of the importance of that education that I make this gift. It’s part of strengthening and supporting the goals of the law school so that our students have the best opportunities and the best education possible with the greatest faculty, scholarships, and programs all combined.”

Supporting the School of Law is critical, Silvers said, for the field of law is “the foundation for society, touching virtually every aspect of life. From innovation to technology to business to health care, law has an impact over just about everything. It’s truly overarching.”

Silvers said she is delighted that her latest gift will help push the University closer to its Ever Brighter goal.

“Ever Brighter will ensure the University’s growth—that we’ll be able to attract the best and the brightest faculty and students and build facilities where cutting-edge research will be conducted,” Silvers said. “It’ll be a quantum leap forward.” 

Major Gift Establishes Scholarship Programs

When Scott Kornspan arrived at the University of Miami as a freshman in 1982, he plunged into campus life—and fell in love with an institution that was working hard on plans for what he called “a glide path to greatness.”

Later, as a student at the School of Law, Scott met classmate and fellow New Yorker Susan Fleischner. The two later married and have spent the past 32 years building distinguished legal careers. Recognizing how their educations

from Law Alumni Couple

had transformed their own lives, they have been dedicated to supporting the University of Miami and its students, as donors, volunteers, mentors, and, in Susan’s case, as an adjunct faculty member at the School of Law.

In 2013, they named the Scott and Susan Fleischner Kornspan Study Lounge, a 24-hour, 7-day academic and gathering space on the first floor of the Shalala Student Center. That gift spoke of their strong desire to provide all students

“This is my way of giving back and saying thanks for the education I received at Miami Law, which has helped me achieve so much."

with round the clock, excellent study facilities to help them succeed, the couple shared.

Now, the Kornspans have cemented their legacy at the University through a major gift of $5 million, which will endow three new scholarship programs for Kornspan Scholars. The Opportunity Scholarship is designed to help the University attract high-achieving first-generation students. The Merit Scholarship is aimed to help the University enroll highly accomplished students. And the Law School Scholarship was crafted to ensure that top first-year law students can continue their studies.

As Susan recounted, it was only through donor-funded financial aid that she was able to return after her first year of law school. “Being a product of the financial aid system, I always felt that when I got accepted to, attended, and graduated from law school, part of that process included giving back. If my predecessors had not done that, I would not have been able to continue my studies,” she said.

“Scott and Susan Kornspan have made a remarkable difference in students’ lives through their many years of support and service to the University of Miami,” President Julio Frenk said. “With this new commitment, that difference will expand exponentially as the students who become

Kornspan Scholars go out into the world and multiply the impact of Scott’s and Susan’s philanthropy through their own work and legacies.”

As a School of Law alumna, Susan was inducted into Iron Arrow, the University’s premier honor society. As a law student, she also was inducted into The Order of Barristers, in recognition of her exceptional skill in written and oral advocacy; won the state moot court competition; and was a member of the Moot Court Board, including holding an executive board position and teaching advanced appellate advocacy for two semesters.

As an undergraduate at the University, Scott was the first two-time student body president and served as a student representative to the Board of Trustees for two years. He was tapped into Iron Arrow as a junior and became chief of the society while at the School of Law.

In their giving to and involvement with the University, the Kornspans are, in Susan’s words, “motivated by a profound desire to open doors to opportunity and enrich the student experience.” The Kornspans encourage ’Canes to engage and stay involved with their alma mater, and “pay it back by paying it forward, whether in time or donations.” 

DEDICATED ALUMNI GIVE BACK TO THEIR ALMA MATER

Classmates at Miami Law, mates for life, Peter Halle, J.D. ’73, and Carolyn Lamm, J.D. ’73, met, studied together, and married. Following graduation, they launched rewarding legal careers in Washington, D.C., after a U.S. Department of Justice recruiter interviewed them on campus.

Now, the distinguished attorneys are giving back to their alma mater with a naming gift to the school: The Peter E. Halle and Carolyn B. Lamm Class of 1973 Room in the Miami Law library. The gift will provide deserving students with access to education through scholarships and renovate the room for students to enjoy.

“Carolyn and I met the first day of orientation, and many of our dates began late at night in the law library,” said Halle, a native of New York City. “Miami Law is not just a great education; it is a very good place for meeting people and making friends. I know. We learned from our fellow students, as well as our professors.”

EQUIPPED BY UM FOR STELLAR LEGAL CAREERS

After graduation in 1973, both Halle and Lamm joined the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., under the Attorney General’s Program for Honor Law Graduates.

“Our training provided us with a competitive education that resulted in our hiring by DOJ, and a unique opportunity to serve our country,” said Halle, who was hired as a trial lawyer in the DOJ’s Antitrust Division where he eventually became assistant chief of the Trial Section and served as director of the Attorney General’s Honors Program in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. He left the DOJ to practice law at Milbank Tweed, then became a partner and senior counsel at Morgan Lewis & Bockius where he spent nearly 30 years as a litigator in the firm’s antitrust & trade regulation practice.

Lamm was recruited by the DOJ to be a trial attorney in the civil division, where she was promoted after a few years to assistant director of the commercial branch. She then joined White & Case LLP, eventually becoming a partner and the chair of W&C’s international disputes—Americas practice.

Lamm is a significant leader of the legal profession, serving as 2009 – 2010 president of the American Bar Association, president of The District of Columbia Bar, the ABA’s representative to the United Nations, and its representative to the International Bar Association.

SUPPORTING MIAMI LAW

Through the years, Halle and Lamm have maintained close ties with Miami Law.

Lamm started teaching as a visiting faculty member more than a decade ago, giving Miami Law students her insights on international investment arbitration. She played a leading role in setting up the White & Case International Arbitration LL.M. program at Miami Law, recognized as one of the best international arbitration programs in the United States. She was also instrumental in establishing a full-tuition scholarship in the program. She is currently the program’s distinguished faculty chair and is also a current member of the UM Board of Trustees.

Both attorneys are currently involved in supportive roles for Miami Law. Halle serves on the Law Alumni Association’s National Advisory Council, and Lamm is vice chair for the school’s Ever Brighter Campaign Committee.

Halle and Lamm appreciate the university naming the reading room for their philanthropy. “We know that students benefit from comfortable surroundings, and this is a meaningful way for us to give back to our school,” said Lamm.

“Miami Law is an opportunity school,” added Halle. “It opened the door to us, provided a sound legal and ethical education, and launched us on our careers. We want to do our part to support future generations of students.” 

$1 MILLION

CY PRES AWARD TO MIAMI LAW WILL SUPPORT ENVIRONMENTAL LAW EFFORTS

The University of Miami School of Law recently received a $1 million cy pres award as part of the distribution of a settlement fund relating to fuel economy for gasolinepowered vehicles.

The School of Law will use the funds to support the work of the Environmental Justice Clinic and the Environmental Law Program

Judge Charles R. Breyer of the U.S. District Court Northern District of California accepted the class plaintiffs’ proposal to distribute the remaining settlement funds for environmental remediation on May 16, 2022.

MIAMI LAW’S EXPANDING ENVIRONMENTAL LAW EFFORTS

The Environmental Justice Clinic advocates for and empowers marginalized communities by combining civil rights, environmental, poverty, and public health law with community lawyering principles. Miami Law’s Environmental Law Program is unique due to its South Florida location, enabling the focus on the prism of issues affecting the environment—from maritime to real estate to land use to the cruise industry to environmental law to law of the sea. The program also offers unique intersectionality with other University of Miami graduate programs in marine affairs, land use, architecture, and business.

“Our Environmental Justice Clinic works directly in our South Florida communities to battle environmental harms,” said Professor Jessica Owley, director of the program. “This award will let us continue our fights to secure a healthy environment.

“The environmental degradation and climate change are some of the most pressing problems facing the world today,” Owley said. “This award will help us continue to prepare our students for careers that will make a difference while also helping our local communities.”

CY PRES FUNDS EXPLAINED

Courts have long recognized the concept of cy pres distributions. It allows for distributions of remaining funds in settlement class actions when direct distributions to class members are not feasible—either because class members cannot be reasonably identified or because distribution would involve such small amounts that, because of the administrative costs involved, such distribution would not be economically viable.

The term cy pres comes from the Norman-French phrase Cy Pres comme possible, meaning “as near as possible,” requiring the parties to identify a recipient whose interests reasonably approximate those pursued by the class.

“We are proud to receive this cy pres award.” said David Yellen, dean of Miami Law. “We are grateful to Judge Breyer for recognizing Miami Law’s environmental law and justice advocacy and engagement.” 

CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF GAIL D. SEROTA WITH LIBRARY READING ROOM DEDICATION

As a dedicated Miami Law student, Gail D. Serota, J.D. ’79, spent many hours in the reading room on the first floor of Miami Law’s library. Her soon-to-be husband, Joseph H. Serota, J.D. ’78, also made good use of the reading room, as did two of their children later in life.

In recognition of her life, Miami Law dedicated that spacious library area as The Gail D. Serota J.D. ’79 Reading Room, following a generous donation from the Serota family in honor of Gail Serota, who died in 2018 while snorkeling in Biscayne Bay.

“Gail was a brilliant student, and a great lawyer, community leader, wife, and mother,” said Joseph Serota, a founding member and first managing director of Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman, P.L. in Miami. “This reading room has a special meaning for her and our family.”

Joe Serota met Gail Dorff when they were both undergraduates at Princeton University and started dating in their junior year. Joseph then moved to Miami to attend Miami Law. Gail would fly down on weekends as their relationship deepened. When Gail decided on a career in law, she was accepted at Stanford University. She was also waiting to hear from Harvard Law School, and Joe planned to transfer schools and join her in Boston. But Gail didn’t get into Harvard. Instead, she turned down Stanford to join Joe at Miami Law, where she received a full scholarship, the Harvey T. Reid Scholarship.

“Gail never looked back,” said Serota. “She loved Miami Law, and everything about living here. Her father, who was expecting to pay for Stanford, bought her a Toyota Celica instead.” As a student, Gail studied diligently, making copious detailed handwritten notes of each class. She joined the law review and graduated second in her class, summa cum laude.

After earning her law degree, Gail clerked for federal appellate Judge Peter Fay, then joined Arky Freed, which later became Stearns Weaver, where she was named partner. Joe was also building his law career, and launched Weiss Serota & Helfman with two partners.

Meanwhile, the Serotas started a family with three sons,

“Gail was a brilliant student, and a great lawyer, community leader, wife and mother,” said Joseph Serota, a founding member and first managing director of Weiss Serota Helfman Cole & Bierman, P.L. in Miami. “This reading room has a special meaning for her and our family.”

Michael, now a law professor at Arizona State University; David, an infectious disease doctor and assistant professor of medicine at the UM Miller School of Medicine; and Nathan, who joined a New York-based hedge fund after graduating from MIT’s business school.

“After our third son was born, Gail took time off from her law firm,” said Serota. “At that time, our firm had the opportunity to represent the City of Homestead in the acquisition and development of the professional racetrack in Homestead,” he said. “We needed someone with experience in public-private real estate and Gail was suggested as a candidate. My partners hired her, and she was with us for 25 years, becoming a partner along the way.”

Through the years, the Serotas stayed involved with Miami Law, attending alumni events, making regular contributions, and joining the Dean’s Circle. That connection was strengthened by having two sons—Michael and Nathan— who spent time studying in the Daner Law Library Wing.

“It is fitting to honor Gail’s life and career by dedicating this reading room in her honor,” said Serota. “It is one of the most beautiful spaces in the law school, and holds special memories for our family.” 

MIAMI LAW ESTABLISHES ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP IN MEMORY OF SURFSIDE VICTIM NICKY LANGESFELD, J.D. ’19

Miami Law has established an endowed scholarship in memory of Nicole “Nicky” Langesfeld, J.D. ’19, thanks to a generous $100,000 donation from her law firm, Reed Smith LLP. Langesfeld and her husband Luis Sadovnic lost their lives in the June 24, 2021, collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside.

“We spent a lot of time with Nicky’s family thinking about the best way to remember her spirit and accomplishments,” said Hugh Lumpkin, J.D. ’80, a partner in Reed Smith’s insurance recovery group. “We felt an endowed scholarship for a first-generation law student would be a fitting legacy for our community.”

Lumpkin and his wife Carol, J.D. ’88, a partner at K&L Gates, have enjoyed a strong relationship with Miami Law for many years. “Now, the scholarship will provide financial assistance to a student who reflects Nicky’s positive spirit and commitment to excellence,” said Lumpkin.

Langesfeld’s tragic death also prompted an outpouring of support from the Miami Law community, including additional scholarship gifts from a campaign led by the class of 2019. “Nicky was a light in law school, a time that can often feel overwhelming,” said classmate Katie Mitchell, J.D. ’19, a complex commercial litigation associate at Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton in Miami. “I am glad that the University of Miami, in collaboration with Nicky’s family, friends, and law firm, are doing their part to honor that light by funding the scholarship in Nicky’s name.”

Langesfeld earned two undergraduate degrees from the University of Florida where she met her future husband. They married in January 2021, just four months before the Surfside condo collapse. She is remembered for her strong work ethic, humor, and constant smile—as well as a deep love of animals, said Lumpkin.

At Miami Law, Langesfeld was known as a diligent student who served on the Business Law Review. After completing her 2L year in 2018, she became Reed Smith’s first summer associate in the Miami office. She joined the firm the following year as an associate in the firm’s insurance recovery group after completing a clerkship.

For the next two years, Langesfeld’s practice focused on litigating and settling insurance coverage disputes on behalf of U.S. policyholders. As a bilingual lawyer with Argentinian roots, she also worked on international litigation matters.

KNOWN FOR HER POSITIVE SPIRIT

“Nicky had a very bright future at our firm,” said Lumpkin. “She was extremely hard working and was able to capture issues and analyze them in a way that advanced the interests of our clients.”

In fact, Langesfeld was working on a Reed Smith case the night of the condo collapse. “She had just gotten off the phone on a call with another associate, when the building came down,” Lumpkin said. “We were very concerned and immediately contacted family members.”

After hearing of the Surfside disaster, Reed Smith partners, associates, and staffers throughout the country contacted the Miami office offering their support. “After reaching out to the senior management team, we decided to centralize those efforts by setting up an endowed scholarship in her name,” said Lumpkin. “I applaud our firm for making such a significant gesture from the heart.” 

“I am glad that the University of Miami, in collaboration with Nicky’s family, friends, and law firm, are doing their part to honor that light by funding the scholarship in Nicky’s name.”

Pages Through a Life Bill Latham Bound byArt

Sit most anywhere in the Miami Law library for a period, and at some point, a specter of continuous motion will enter the scene. Flying along behind a scarred wooden three-shelf wheeled cart, sometimes muttering gleefully, comes a measure of lean and lank, clad in flowery short sleeves, dungarees, and running shoes. If Bill Latham were punctuation, he would be an exclamation point. Italicized. The 39-year Miami Law circulation librarian (who started off as a circulation staffer) practically arrived in the stacks by chance since he is equally at home in the world of hardbound pulp and interpreting reality with gouache, oil, or acrylic paints on stretched canvases. Of the hundreds of

paintings—portraits, landscapes, still lifes—he has created in his six decades of art, four are formal portraits of past deans that hang in The Gail D. Serota J.D. ’79 Reading Room.

FROM COLORING BOOKS TO ART SCHOOL

Latham was born just 15 crow miles from the law library in Hialeah, when the rural prairie outpost was but home to a spectacular horse racing track. “I could sit on rise across the street and look at a field of wild grass that ran all the way to Miami Springs. It looked like Holland,” he said. “It was gorgeous, with wild winter clouds rolling by. It struck me as very European, and I was 12.

“That is where the world ended,” he said. “Hialeah was like a growth on the back of Miami Beach, where the Beatles and The Supremes visited, and movies were being made. Everything was on Miami Beach. We had a derelict farm and a Dino the Dinosaur [Sinclair] gas station in my neighborhood.”

Latham grew up as the second youngest of six, with ancestral ties to Poland and the great immigration of European Jews to New York, New Jersey, and Miami Beach. “My grandparents lived on Miami Beach. It was like going to another country,” he said. “Nothing ever happened in Hialeah; you could hear a cow screaming in a thunderstorm.”

From the first days of art periods in his neighborhood elementary school’s second grade, Latham was noticed, then nurtured and mentored by the once-a-week art teacher. Sometimes he would get presents of sketch pads or paint sets as a young boy, though truly he was very disappointed when the pads were actually coloring books since it stifled his artistic endeavors.

His gift would grow and be awarded in local school and art shows. He studied the great artists of the generation, admiring the breadth and styles of de Kooning, Rauschenberg, Hockney, and Jasper Johns, and would earn a spot at the legendary Parsons School of Design in New York’s Greenwich Village.

“It would have been a greater experience, if not for the culture shock; I went from the boonies of Hialeah to Manhattan as a 19 year old,” he said. “The work was very hard for me, and I felt like the other kids were making art and I was just overwhelmed.”

Even in the 1970s, Manhattan was beyond the financial reach of his family and Latham lived in the Chelsea YMCA, among low wage workers. (A cab driver dying of consumption lived in the room next door.) His fourth cousin Sylvia of Jackson Heights or Aunt Pearl of Coney Island would feed him now and again.

“Then my grandfather died, who was my one champion throughout my life,” he said, “and I had to experience it alone. It was just too much, and I left after one semester.”

Latham transferred to Florida State University in Tallahassee to finish his degree before moving to Brooklyn several years later with two friends to try to crack into the art gallery track. He had some successes—group shows and print publications. To help support himself and keep him in turpentine, canvas, and paint, he worked in the library of Pace University, near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, and thus began his life among the stacks.

Family, and the pursuit of a Master of Fine Art at UM, would bring him back to South Florida and, again, the library would factor in financially. He took a library job at Miami Law while waiting to be accepted in the MFA program then juggled classes, working as a teaching assistant for two years. After graduation, Latham taught college art all around Miami and moonlighted at Miami Law.

In the late 1980s, Latham’s mother’s health took a turn for the worse and he spent more time caring for her, which gave him much more time to paint. Soon after his mother’s death in 1989, he had four shows of his work and was well on his way to establishing himself more widely.

“Around the same time a full-time job opened at the library, and I needed a dependable way to support myself, so I took the job,” he said. Offers of shows and commissions went unanswered because of lack of time to produce a body of work. “I spent six months curating a show at the Wolfson—it is a huge investment of time—and it was only half-good, a B+ at best.”

Hurricane Andrew in 1992 wiped out many of Latham’s paintings that were being stored at a brother’s house in Homestead, dividing his art and work life even further.

“What I am grateful for and why I don’t think I have regrets is when my art life creeps up, it’s only in a positive way,” he said. “I have a friend in the banking world with many patrons of the arts friends. The friend was one of my early models for a series of paintings with light and water. He saw one of the paintings at the home of an art collector acquaintance, and, when asked, the man responded that it was the work of a very important local artist.”

Latham’s post-Miami Law phase is not even a work in progress. “Seriously, I never thought I would live this long!” he said. “I would like to finish an illustrated children’s book I started in my 30s. If I do retire, I’ll probably move to Tallahassee where my brother has a wannabe farm with four chickens and an armadillo. Maybe I’ll paint large canvases of neighborhood cows,” though he said such a move would be if circumstances favor such a plan.

“But seriously, I want to express my gratitude for working where I am working,” he said, “or I wouldn’t have stayed so long. The students are so interesting, so funny, they are so smart—they catch on right away. And if they are not dying from no sleep—or anything else in their lives—let’s just say I couldn’t work in a back room. Well, I could but I would have been gone in a month.” 

LEAVE A LEGACY THAT SHINES EVER BRIGHTER

For nearly 100 years, philanthropy has inspired extraordinary achievements at the University of Miami School of Law—from providing essential funding for student scholarships to legal training through clinics and externships. With the right planned gift to the School of Law, you can protect yourself and your loved ones while taking advantage of tax and income benefits. Join us to transform lives today and for generations to come.

It’s Easy—Here’s How:

• Name the U in your will, codicil or revocable trust

• Designate the U as a full, partial or contingent beneficiary of your retirement account (e.g., IRA 401 (k), 403 (b))

• Designate the U as a beneficiary of your Iife insurance policy

For more information on how you can leave a legacy that shines ever brighter contact: Kyle Paige, executive director, Office of Estate and Gift Planning, at 305-284-2266 or kpaige@miami.edu, or visit us at miami.edu/plannedgiving.