On March 5, Fordham Law Women held its third annual symposium, focusing this year’s event on issues important to women in general and to women in the law, through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. A panel of scholars and practitioners explored a range of topics related to COVID’s impact on women in the workforce, on marginalized women, and on access to justice, in light of the ongoing pandemic. Pressures Build on Women in the Legal Profession Adjunct Professor Lisa Teich moderated the first discussion, exploring ways in which the pandemic has deepened pre-existing inequalities for women and exposed vulnerabilities…
Author: Erin DeGregorio
“I don’t follow precedent. I establish it,” Fanny E. Holtzmann ’22 was once quoted as saying, reflecting her distinctive brand of confidence. Holtzmann specialized in motion picture and copyright cases and practiced law in New York, Hollywood, and London. Her most well-known case, Youssoupoff v. MGM Pictures, Ltd., transformed defamation law and advanced the horizons of First Amendment law. Aside from representing Hollywood and Broadway stars, Holtzmann was also active in politics and attended the first United Nations conference in 1945. Time magazine reported in 1934 that “Miss Fanny Holtzmann has been known vaguely in Manhattan theatrical circles as ‘the…
On March 18, television news anchor and journalist Bill Ritter moderated a conversation among eight of the candidates running in the 2021 New York City mayoral election. The event was co-hosted by Fordham Law’s Access to Justice Initiative and the National Center for Access to Justice and co-sponsored by the Feerick Center for Social Justice, The Stein Center for Law and Ethics and FLAVR—Fordham Law Advocates for Voter Rights. This live-streamed virtual forum focused primarily on issues of civil justice, highlighting the consequences of the pandemic and the significant challenges New Yorkers currently face—including evictions, increased debt, mental health and…
The annual Fordham Law Review spring symposium, held on Feb. 26, focused on election law, voting systems, and the future of American elections on the national and state levels and featured a recorded keynote speech by New York State Attorney General Letitia James. In her remarks, James commented on recent primary and general elections in New York State. “While New York considers itself a bastion of progress, for far too long we have failed to protect and promote the sanctity of the elected franchise. Even now the state continues to have one of the lowest voter turnout rates and highest…
As part of Fordham Law’s Black History Month programming, Fordham Law Professor Clare Huntington spoke with Anne Williams-Isom FCLC ’86, James R. Dumpson Chair in Child Welfare Studies at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, during a lively fireside chat on Feb. 23. In addition to serving as a faculty member at Fordham, Williams-Isom is a member of the President’s Council at Fordham University and former chief executive officer of the anti-poverty organization Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ). She provided a unique perspective on the intersection of law and public policy when it comes to social justice issues. In her conversation with…
To close out Black History Month, on Feb. 25 the Center on Race, Law and Justice presented a forward-looking discussion titled, “How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?” Five scholars of race and the law came together to talk about what the future holds for Black people—especially given that the U.S. is projected to tip from being majority-white to majority-minority by 2044—as well as the role law and lawyers can play in shaping that future. Center on Race, Law and Justice Director Bennett Capers, who moderated the conversation, highlighted that, while progress has been made in politics—with the recent elections of…
When Sarah McShane ’21, who organized this year’s Fordham International Law Journal symposium, read about Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests taking place in countries like Australia and Germany while Americans were also protesting across the nation, she began to wonder if the roots of those protests were similar to those in the U.S. This partially inspired the journal’s editors to focus this year’s spring symposium on the manifestation of the BLM movement, as well issues of racial and ethnic discrimination around the globe. On Feb. 12, the journal invited judges, scholars, and activists—who are well-versed in civil and human rights…
Fordham Law’s Maloney Law Library is hosting its first-ever George A. Strait Minority Fellow this spring semester. The George A. Strait Minority Fellowship—offered through the American Association of Law Libraries—is designed to provide students from underrepresented groups with a unique opportunity to obtain meaningful and practical law library experience. This year’s Strait Minority Fellow Christine Park, who will graduate from Rutgers University in May with a master’s degree in information science, chose Fordham Law out of 45 academic institutions across the country for her fellowship. Some factors that made Fordham Law an attractive place for Park to study included its…
As Fordham Law School celebrates Women’s History Month, we spoke with Zoe Buzinkai ’22 and Krista Gresia ’21—2L president and 3L president, respectively, of Fordham Law Women—about the affinity group’s networking initiatives, the challenges faced by women in law school and the legal profession, advocacy goals, and how they are planning to honor Fordham alumnae. What have been Fordham Law Women’s goals for the 2020-21 academic year? KG: We try to hold events related to networking, which include having alumni come and talk to students about their firms, the interview process, and other key networking skills. Then, on the student…
Fordham Law swept two major art law writing competitions this year—the Phil Cowan–Judith Bresler Memorial Scholarship Writing Competition (sponsored by the New York State Bar Association’s [NYSBA] Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Section, and open to students in New York-area law schools) and the nationwide Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation’s (LCCHP) Law Student Writing Competition. Three Fordham Law students who took Adjunct Professor Leila Amineddoleh’s art law seminar in 2019 and 2020 won cash prizes for their submissions. “We’ve had a number of Fordham Law students awarded these prizes in the past, but I was happy that Fordham swept…