These Fordham Law alumni eventually made their way back to the legal classroom. Here’s a look at some of the issues and stories you may hear them talk about there. Plus, we asked all of them to grade themselves on an aspect of their pedagogy—no cheating! D. Benjamin Barros ’96 Dean and Professor of Law, University of Toledo School of Law Barros is the founding editor of the Journal of Law, Property, and Society, and in 2015, co-authored a casebook on property law. The Value of Risk Risk allocation is at the heart of what lawyers do, but it’s not…
Author: Steve Wilson
Pop culture’s obsession with the law—thrillers, procedurals, dramas—has both inspired and infuriated Fordham Law alumni. Here’s what they love and loathe about the law-related novels, television shows, and movies that capture the nation’s attention. During her confirmation hearing to become a Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor acknowledged that one of the unexpected influences on her decision to pursue law was an episode of the long-running courtroom drama Perry Mason. She specifically recalled one episode when a prosecutor told Mason, a defense attorney, “My job as a prosecutor is to do justice, and justice is served when a guilty man is convicted…
Fordham’s new tax law expert on driving tractors, studying religion, and testifying before Congress Stretching back to a one-room schoolhouse in a rural farming community in Indiana in the 1800s, Rebecca Kysar’s family tree is rooted in teaching, and she represents the fourth generation in the long, unbroken line. As a rising star in the world of the tax legislative process and international tax law and as Fordham Law’s newest full-time professor, she admirably carries on her family’s legacy. Kysar has made waves in both the political and academic spheres of late, for her April 2018 testimony before Congress on…
A conversation with five Fordham Law professors about tax law Complicated and little understood, the U.S. tax code is the subject of endless public debate, a perennial topic of political campaigns, and, of course, a necessary burden that every American must grapple with each year. With the recent passage of a new tax bill, hundreds of pages of new provisions have been added to an already arcane regime. Fordham Lawyer spoke with five professors who specialize in tax law—Jeffrey Colon, Constantine Katsoris ’57, Rebecca Kysar, Elizabeth Maresca, and Linda Sugin—to discuss the recent changes and what they mean for us as…
If a company brings a product to market and tries to sell it based on mendacious data, that company will most likely get into trouble. Consider the case of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of health tech company Theranos, who was charged by the SEC with fraud after making false claims about the utility of her company’s blood test devices. But what would have happened to Holmes had she included similar fanciful uses in a patent application for her company’s device? Would she have been fined or sent to jail? Hardly. In fact, the fictitious claims would have probably made her…
In the months after the 2016 presidential election, Fordham Law Visiting Professor Corey Brettschneider envisioned writing a book that outlined how President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions directly opposed and undermined the U.S. Constitution he swore an oath to uphold. But conversations with his editor, family members, fellow academics, high school students, and Trump supporters calling in to a popular talk show program convinced the scholar to chart a different course. Brettschneider’s book, The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents (W.W. Norton & Company), is a historically rich and academically rigorous examination of the…
When Fordham Law Professor Nestor M. Davidson moved to New York City eight years ago, hailing a taxi in the outer boroughs often amounted to a shared exercise in futility for him and other residents living outside Manhattan. Ride-sharing apps such as Uber and Lyft have since transformed global transportation in densely populated cities such as New York, and in doing so have made Davidson’s travel life easier and his scholarly focus on urban law richer. Davidson’s latest book, The Cambridge Handbook of the Law of the Sharing Economy (Cambridge University Press), features reflections from numerous leading thinkers on how the…
Recently, Toni Jaeger-Fine was speaking to a former student about the current state of the legal profession. “There are a lot of really bright lawyers out there, in terms of legal skills, knowledge, and education,” the former student, who now serves on the managing committee of a major New York law firm, told Jaeger-Fine. “But that’s just not good enough anymore.” Jaeger-Fine’s book Becoming a Lawyer: Discovering and Defining Your Professional Persona (West Academic Publishing) addresses what goes into being a successful lawyer in the modern era beyond the legal skills and knowledge one learns in law school. The project…
Highlighting a key partner in the A2J Initiative at Fordham Law School When it comes to housing in the country’s most densely populated big cities, a lawyer’s help can make the difference between a family sleeping in their apartment or spending many nights on the streets or in a shelter. But the harsh reality is approximately 90 percent of tenants facing eviction in the United States do not have legal representation. By contrast, nearly 90 percent of landlords in these same eviction cases do have legal representation. In an effort to level the scales of justice, the city of New…
A new online portal helps students find their way Every semester Fordham Law students consider many of the same questions as their predecessors did: How do I meet all the graduation requirements on time? Who is the best resource for advice on career planning? Whom should I email to collect financial aid refunds? Keeping track of this jumble of dates, deadlines, and internal and external contacts scattered across different web pages, portals, and emails can lead right into a labyrinth of stress and confusion for students. But thanks to the new J.D. Experience, those days of anguish are over. The J.D.…