May 8th: Cinco de Mayo with the Capital District Black & Hispanic Bar Association

The Capital District Black and Hispanic Bar Association Presents 

Cinco de Mayo!

Professional Networking Social

Wednesday, May 8TH

from: 5:30 p.m. – 7:30pm 

El Mariachi Mexican restaurant

289 Hamilton street

Albany, NY 12210

$10

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: cdbhba@gmail.com 

Women’s Law Caucus: Saving Face Screening & Panel Discussion

On Wednesday, March 6th, as part of the 2013 Kate Stoneman Event Series, the Women’s Law Caucus hosted a screening of the Academy-Award Winning Documentary Saving Face.  From the documentary’s website: “Every year in Pakistan, many people – the majority of them women – are known to be victimized by brutal acid attacks, while numerous other cases go unreported. With little or no access to reconstructive surgery, survivors are physically and emotionally scarred. Many reported assailants, often a husband or someone else known by the victim, receive minimal if any punishment from the state. SAVING FACE chronicles the lives of Zakia and Rukhsana as they attempt to bring their assailants to justice and move on with their lives. The women are supported by NGOs, sympathetic policymakers, and skilled doctors including surgeon Dr. Mohammad Jawad, attorney Ms. Sarkar Abbass who fights Zakia’s case, and female politician Marvi Memon who advocates for new legislation.”

 

The screening was followed by the discussion:

Where Do We Go From Here? The Role of the International Community and State in Ending Violence Against Women.

The panelists include:

 - Ali Chaudry ’10, Assistant Counsel, Office of the Majority Counsel, New York State Senate

 - Gwen Wright, Acting Executive Director, New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence

 - Professor Harrington

 - Professor Rogerson

 

faculty, staff, and students attended this emotional and thought-provoking discussion. The event was held on the ALBANY LAW SCHOOL 

 

This event is co-sponsored by Albany Law School Student groups: LALSA, the Muslim Law Society, and the International Law Society.

 

Contact: Kathleen Evers, ’15, Chair of the Women’s Law Caucus, & Emily Von Werlhof, Event Lead Coordinator, at: kevers@albanylaw.edu

Newly Re-established White House Initiative Office to Seek Ideas on Native American Education

by Lydia Lum, May 1, 2012

Officials representing the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education are hosting a series of forums around the country in the coming weeks seeking ideas on how to improve educational outcomes for indigenous populations.

In hopes of gaining participation and input from tribal nations, the upcoming meetings dovetail with efforts to create a memorandum of understanding that will frame a partnership aimed at expanding educational opportunities and improving academic achievement. The Department of Education and Department of Interior, which oversee the initiative, already have held roundtables with tribal leaders, Indian educators and other federal officials.

The initiative seeks to close the achievement gap between Indian and non-Indian students, reduce the high dropout rates among Alaska natives and Indians, and help preserve and revitalize Native languages, histories and cultures.

“Education is key to the fabric of healthy communities,” says Interior Secretary and Initiative co-chairman Ken Salazar. “But we need to do better when it comes to meeting the academic and cultural needs of our American Indian and Alaska Native students across the nation. These consultations will be critical in developing the most effective framework to raise the bar for Indian Country education.”

The Interior Department houses the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education (BIE). The BIE, which directly operates or provides grants to tribes to run an extensive primary, secondary and postsecondary school system, is interested in improving school access to federal funding programs and expertise.

” The strength of tribes and our nation’s future prosperity are inextricably tied,” says Education Secretary and Initiative co-chairman Arne Duncan. “Together we can dramatically improve the lives of our Native students. These consultations will be invaluable.”

The sessions are scheduled for:  May 18 at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, Calif.; May 24 at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz.; May 31 at BLN Office Park in Bloomington, Minn.; & June 5 at Renaissance Inn in Nashville, Tenn.

The initiative targets the education of all American Indians and Alaska Natives, including those attending schools operated and funded by BIE, those attending public schools in cities and rural areas, and those attending postsecondary institutions, including tribal colleges.

Among the goals called for in the initiative are the establishment of an agreement providing an avenue for both departments to work with tribal leaders as well as continued governance over the transfers of statutory education grant funds from the Education Department to the Interior Department.

The initiative addresses critical issues and challenges affecting the quality of instruction, student achievement, high dropout rates and tribal languages facing extinction. The anticipated educational outcomes would help preserve and revitalize Native languages that students could not only learn but also better equip them to explore indigenous cultures and histories, while otherwise gaining comprehensive educations better preparing them for life.

Among the strategies thus far proposed to achieve these outcomes are enhanced teacher training and recruitment, pilot demonstration projects, improved accountability, capacity building for tribal education agencies that also would strengthen tribal sovereignty and partnerships with public, private and philanthropic entities and national networks to share best practices.
Article from: http://diverseeducation.com/article/17038c2/newly-re-established-white-house-initiative-office-to-seek-ideas-on-native-american-education.html

Conference Features Kenya’s Chief Justice & Intern’l Prosecutor, April 12-14 at Albany Law School

“Africa and International Law: Taking Stock and Moving Forward” will take place at Albany Law School from April 12 through 14 and will feature:

Fatou Bensouda, Deputy Prosecutor, International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague

Judge Abdul Koroma, International Court of Justice

Dr. Willy Mutunga, Chief Justice and President, Kenyan Supreme Court

Adama Dieng, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Registrar, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

http://www.africanlaw.org/

And dozens of leading academics, scholars and international law experts

“The conference will bring together

NAACP President & CEO to Deliver Address on Racial Profiling, April 11, 2012

Please join the Albany Law School Black Law Students Association (BLSA) as they host Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), for the event “Why Me? Racial Profiling in the Wake of the Trayvon Martin Shooting” at Albany Law School on Wednesday, April 11, at 3:00 p.m.  The event is FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

FREE EVENT: The Disproportionate Impact of the Criminal Justice System on People of Color

Join the NJC Capital Region committee on March 20 from 6pm-8pm for a free drama presentation on the disproportionate impact of the Criminal Justice system on people of color in the Capital Region.

February 1st. Event: Prisoners of the Iranian Regime: Lessons for Lawyers

Please join us in Room 200 at Albany Law School,  at 4p.m.
~A reception to follow in the GYM

Be sure to watch a live stream of the event HERE.

Save the Date: April 12 -14, 2012. Conference on Africa and International Law: Taking Stock and Moving Forward

In the Spring of 2012, Albany Law School will begin its tribute to one of its most distinguished alums, Justice Robert Jackson, class of 1912.   Justice Jackson was Chief Counsel for the United States at the Nuremberg Trials.  He served as U.S. Attorney General and as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice Jackson was essential to equal rights in the United States as he voted to end segregation in the historic opinion Brown v. The Board of Education.  So important was the case to him that he left his hospital bed to be in Court when the decision was handed down.  He is also remembered for having dissented in Korematsu where he criticized the majority decision in the Supreme Court for ratifying the racially discriminatory internment of Japanese Americans. In other cases, he wrote in favor of religious minorities.

He enjoyed international acclaim with his work against the Nazis at Nuremberg as well as in the creation of the International Military Tribunal which, many years later, led to the creation of the International Criminal Court.

Albany Law School will be hosting a series of events to commemorate the work of Justice Jackson, culminating with Africa and International Law: Taking Stock and Moving Forward, between 12th and 14th of April, 2012 at Albany Law School.  The conference will feature keynotes from leading jurists including Judge Abdul Koroma of the International Court of Justice, Dr. Willy Mutunga, Chief Justice and President of the Supreme Court of Kenya, and, delivering the Jackson Keynote, Fatou Bensouda, Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

We look forward to hosting this important event and we want to involve the Albany Law School community.  Students are encouraged to be student ambassadors for those visiting the law school.  For more information about being an ambassador, or about how your student group can get involved, please email Kevin Ramakrishna, Esq., ’09 Special Assistant for Academic Instruction and Research at: krama@albanylaw.edu  or contact Professor James Thou Gathii, Associate Dean for Research & Scholarship and Governor George E. Pataki Professor of International Commercial Law.

Invitation: Nov. 3rd, 6 p.m. Event: The First Amendment and Sharia Law Discussion

Save the Date: Albany Government Law Review LGBT SYMPOSIUM on October 13, 2011

Jeh Johnson, the General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Defense, will deliver the keynote address at LGBT Rights: Toward a More Perfect Union, a symposium sponsored by Albany Government Law Review on Thursday, October 13, 2011.  Mr. Johnson will address the implementation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal in the armed services at the daylong event at Albany Law School.  Mr. Johnson, the co-chair of the 2010 working group that studied the impact of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” oversees all legal matters for the largest government agency in the world. 

The first panel, focusing on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), features litigators at the forefront of today’s legal news.  Panelists Maura Healey, Chief of the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, and Roberta Kaplan, Partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, will argue the constitutionality of DOMA in pending court cases against the U.S. House of Representatives in the First Circuit and in the Southern District of New York, respectively.  Brian Raum, Director of Marriage Litigation Center for the Alliance Defense Fund, will also participate on the panel.

The second panel, on family and workplace rights, features “LGBT Liaison” Matt Nosanchuk, Senior Counselor in the U.S. Department of Justice; Michele Kahn, Partner at Kahn & Goldberg; William Singer, Partner at Singer & Fedun; and Carol Buell, Partner at Weiss, Buell & Bell.

Finally, Asssemblymember Daniel J. O’Donnell and Senator James S. Alesi will be joined by Katherine Grainger, Assistant Counsel to Governor Andrew Cuomo, for an oral history of the same-sex marriage law in New York State.  For more information about “LGBT Rights: Toward a More Perfect Union,” please visit: www.albanylaw.edu/lgbt

The schedule of events for LGBT Rights: Toward a More Perfect Union on October 13, includes:

Implementing the Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”—1:30 p.m.

·   Keynote speaker: Jeh Johnson, General Counsel, U.S. Department of Defense

 

Discussion on the Defense of Marriage Act—2:45 p.m.

·   Roberta Kaplan, Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP 

·   Brian Raum, Director of Marriage Litigation Center, Alliance Defense Fund 

·   Maura Healey, Chief, Civil Rights Division, Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General

 

Family & Workplace Rights—4 p.m.

Moderated by Melissa Breger, Professor of Law, Albany Law School

·   Carol Buell, Partner, Weiss, Buell & Bell

·   Michele Kahn, Partner, Kahn & Goldberg, LLP

·   Matt Nosanchuk, Senior Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General,

U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division

·   William Singer, Partner, Singer & Fedun LLC 

 

An Oral History of New York’s Legalization of Same-sex Marriage- 5:30p.m.

Moderated by Stephen Clark, Professor of Law, Albany Law School

·        Hon. Jim Alesi, New York State Senator

·        Hon. Daniel O’Donnell, New York State Assemblymember

·        Katherine Grainger, Assistant Counsel, Office of Counsel to the Governor