As Fordham Law School students returned to Lincoln Center for the first day of in-person classes on Aug. 25, 455 first-year J.D. students began their law school journey. More than 7,900 applicants from throughout the U.S. and around the globe competed for the 455 slots in the J.D. program. Women make up 55 percent of the new class, and 32 percent of incoming students self-identify as a minority—including 33 Black students, 42 Latinx students, 55 Asian students, and 14 students who identify as multiracial. The class also includes 16 international students from 8 countries. More than 160 colleges and universities…
Author: Erin DeGregorio and Sejla Rizvic
Fordham Law School has named Judge Denny Chin ’78 of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit the Lawrence W. Pierce ’51 Distinguished Jurist in Residence. The role honors Judge Pierce, who served on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1971 to 1981, and on the Second Circuit from 1981 to 1995. He was only the third African American to serve on the Second Circuit. Judge Pierce was a highly regarded jurist, in both the district court and the circuit court, and a person of great dignity and grace. A Leader in…
Fordham Law welcomes 177 new graduate students for the fall semester—120 students in nine LL.M. degree specializations, including three students in the new online LL.M. Corporate Compliance program; 13 students in the in-person M.S.L. programs; 42 students in the online M.S.L. Corporate Compliance program; and two doctoral degree candidates who will be working under the supervision of Professors Caroline Gentile and Olivier Sylvain. This new group of students joins the 79 LL.M. students, 118 M.S.L. students, and seven doctoral candidates who are continuing their studies, for a total of 381 graduate students. Our new graduate students come from more than…
Fordham Law School opened its doors prior to the start of the fall semester, welcoming its newest class of students to the Lincoln Center campus for in-person orientation. This year’s orientation consisted of programming that provided overviews of what to expect in the first year of law school as well as an introduction to law through courses in legal process, quantitative methods, and legal practice. Incoming 1Ls spoke with their house leaders, professors, fellow classmates, and upper-year students during small-group meetings and activities. Fordham Law School Dean Matthew Diller welcomed the class with a smile behind his mask, emphasizing the…
The trial of notorious mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano and his associates not only captivated the public’s attention, but also took the legal world by storm in the late 1930s. It was the first time a mobster was convicted for crimes that involved racketeering. Though Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey took center stage during the trial, Eunice Hunton Carter ’32 played a critical role behind the scenes. She linked prostitution in the city to the work of Luciano, orchestrated the sting operation that resulted in Luciano’s arrest and imprisonment, and served as the only woman prosecutor and person of color on…
From research into migrant employment in Saudi Arabia to analysis of solitary confinement reform, students in Fordham Law’s Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) program are pursuing a wide range of innovative legal scholarship. Four students—Yusra Alshanqiti ’21, Alison Gordon ’21, Irina Ilyuk ’21, and Mohammed Sweify ’21—recently completed their dissertation work after conducting extensive legal research under the supervision of Fordham faculty. Assistant Dean Toni Jaeger-Fine, who oversees the S.J.D. program, said the following about the candidates who have recently completed their doctoral work: “They have produced a body of work that is scholarly but also deeply impactful, and they…
Fordham Law’s office of professionalism has announced its new cohort of professionalism fellows for the 2021-22 academic year. The fellowship program launched in June 2020. The new group of fellows will build upon the many successes the inaugural set of fellows achieved in the past year, despite operating in a mostly remote environment. The seven upper-year students—who share an interest in and commitment to promoting professionalism, mentorship, and inclusion within the Law School—will play a key role in Fordham Law’s house system, which aims to enhance the student experience by creating smaller communities of support within the Law School. The…
Mark Torres ‘08 calls himself “a Teamster with a law degree,” but he’s much more than that. In addition to serving as general counsel of the Teamsters Local Union 810 in Long Island City, he is the author of four books, most recently Long Island Migrant Labor Camps: Dust for Blood, which was published in March 2021. Wearing many hats is not new to Torres. In the 1990s, he worked as a refrigeration engineer at New York University and became a member of the Local 810. Serving as a shop steward, Torres recalls enjoying problem-solving and serving as a liaison…
Fordham Law School has appointed Marta Ricardo as its new director of fundamental lawyering skills. Prior to joining Fordham Law, Ricardo served as assistant dean and dean of career services, as well as executive director of career services and professional development, at Columbia Law over the past 14 years. She also taught Columbia Law’s negotiation workshop, which is similar to the fundamental lawyering course offered at Fordham Law. Using an integrated transactional law and private sector career services perspective informed by her backgrounds in big law, banking, and academia, she will oversee the fundamental lawyering skills course wherein students learn…
The International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) has named recent graduate Rafita Ahlam ’21 as the recipient of the annual Westin Scholar Award. The IAPP is the world’s largest and most comprehensive global information privacy community and resource. The Westin Scholar Award pays homage to the late Dr. Alan Westin, a foundational voice in the field of privacy and data protection. Throughout his life, Dr. Westin researched and wrote about privacy, data protection, digital identity, and the future of how societies will deal with issues at the intersection of law and technology. The IAPP announced the launch of the annual…