A unique approach to Environmental Law-Pollution Control in the classroom

Richard J. Lippes ’69

Tom Tyler

Adam Walters

In spring 2012, SUNY Buffalo Law School will implement a unique approach to teaching about Environmental Law-Pollution Control as well as provide students with access to multiple experts and practical outlooks. Environmental Law Program Director Kim Diana Connolly has announced that three experts in the field, Richard J. Lippes ’69 of Richard J. Lippes & Associates, Tom Tyler of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters, in Washington, DC, and Adam Walters of Phillips Lytle LLP will bring their extensive environmental law experience to the classroom.

The three adjuncts will each lead a three-week “unit” of the class, covering such topics as the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Clean Air Act, and the Toxic Substances Control Act. Professor Connolly will be the lead instructor, teaching a unit herself and working with each of the adjuncts to prepare their units and assessments and coordinating every class.

The instructors will use their extensive practice experience to go beyond the typical class, exploring why each statute was written, how it has been implemented by the agencies, how it has been interpreted by courts, and how it works in actual practice. Students will learn about broader areas of authority under which agencies act (beyond just regulations and enforcement) and how the realities of clients and other stakeholders influence the application of laws. Students will do simulations and other practical exercises, and will be assessed at the end of each unit rather than through a final exam. Under Professor Connolly’s guidance, the students will also select a topic and write a brief white paper that will be posted on the Law School’s website.

Trial attorney Francis Letro will receive Law School’s highest honor Friday, Jan. 27 in NYC

Reservations for the New York City Alumni Luncheon can be made through the Law Alumni Office at (716) 645-2107 or online.

One of Buffalo’s best-known trial attorneys will be honored in January with SUNY Buffalo Law School’s most prestigious award.

Francis M. Letro ’79 will receive the Edwin F. Jaeckle Award on Jan. 27. The award, the highest honor the Law School and its Law Alumni Association can bestow, will be presented at the New York City Alumni Luncheon at the Union League Club, 38 E. 37th St. (corner of Park Avenue), in Manhattan. Named for Edwin F. Jaeckle ’15, the award is given annually to an individual who has distinguished himself or herself and has made significant contributions to the Law School and to the legal profession.

Previous recipients have included Hon. Charles S. Desmond, Hon. Matthew J. Jasen, Manly Fleischmann, Jacob D. Hyman, Hon. M. Dolores Denman, William R. Greiner and the 2011 honoree, Thomas E. Black Jr. ’79.

“Fran Letro has been instrumental in the successes our school has achieved in recent years,” said Law School Dean Makau W. Mutua. “SUNY Buffalo Law School has no better friend, and I count Fran among those whose opinions and wise counsel I value most highly. I am delighted that we are able to recognize his achievements and his integrity with this Jaeckle Award.”

Letro, who limits his practice to personal injury cases, is a native of Olean and earned his undergraduate degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He has held leadership positions in many professional organizations on the national, state and local levels, and for 20 years has been a board member of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. He is also an active member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, and the Bar Associations of Erie, Cattaraugus, and Allegany counties.

He is a frequent lecturer for national, state and local bar associations, speaking to lawyers and judges about trial practice and procedure, and at continuing legal education seminars and practice skills programs across New York State. He has served as a member of several statewide and local judicial screening panels for sitting judges.

Letro was just 7 when his father, a foreman for the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, lost a leg in a railway accident. Seeing his family devastated by the tragedy, the elder Letro retained an attorney who secured a settlement. “I remember my father’s enormous respect, admiration and gratitude for the lawyer who represented him,” Francis Letro recalled. That experience inspired him to pursue a career in law, so that he could advocate for victims of similar misfortunes.

At SUNY Buffalo Law School, Letro has been a longtime member of the Dean’s Advisory Council – a panel of distinguished practitioners who provide important input into curriculum and other academic policy decisions – and now serves as the group’s vice chair. The Law School’s first-floor working courtroom is named in his honor, in recognition of a $1 million gift in 2002 from Letro and his wife, Cindy Abbott Letro, in support of the school’s mission. He is also a past recipient of the SUNY Buffalo Law Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Letro’s philanthropy and other support has also extended to such community mainstays as Erie County Medical Center, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo State College, the Burchfield Penney Art Center, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Darwin Martin House Restoration Project, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Boy Scouts.

Building a bridge to practice

January is the season for one of SUNY Buffalo Law School’s most distinctive traditions, the intensive learning experiences known as bridge courses.

Ranging from one to three credits, students can choose from among 39 courses offered from start to finish in January, with some taking as many as three bridge courses. Some seize the opportunity to explore an area of the law that intrigues them; others pile on the credits to lighten their course load during the coming spring semester. In every case, though, the experience is one that broadens students’ legal horizons and imparts some of the essential skills of legal practice.

“I don’t know of any other school that does what we do, which is to open a distinct space in the curriculum that serves as a showcase for our adjunct faculty, our judges and our practitioners,” says SUNY Distinguished Professor James A. Gardner, vice dean for academic affairs. “Other schools have adjunct-taught courses, and often those courses are skills-oriented or highly focused as ours are, but the idea of having a dedicated portion of the year devoted to this is unique to us.”

In keeping with the Law School’s emphasis on imparting practical legal skills, many of the bridge-term courses address those skills directly, such as learning how to choose a jury or how to take a deposition. “But all of them are skills courses in the sense that they provide a close and focused and practice-oriented look at a very narrow area of law,” Gardner says. “That’s distinct from the normal classroom experience. Even a focused course in Law School tends to be a survey course. This is sort of an apprentice’s-eye view of what practice is like.”

Most bridge courses at SUNY Buffalo Law are taught by alumni and other practitioners – attorneys, judges and government officials among them – supplemented by Law School faculty. Often, teaching a bridge course is a chance for alumni to reconnect with the school and share with law students some of their hard-won expertise in their area of specialization.

The courses include opportunities for clinical experience and judicial clerkships in Social Security disability law and habeas corpus law, and such emerging practice areas as Alternative Dispute Resolution and sexual harassment mediation.

Among the highlights of the bridge-term courses:

• A course on Buffalo’s financial control board looks at “the amenability of economic and fiscal problems such as those of the city to resolution by subordination of democratic politics to control by a board of appointed experts.” The course examines the basis in the state Constitution for establishing the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, whose chair is former Law School Dean R. Nils Olsen, and looks at the political context in which the board was created. It’s taught by James Magavern ’59 and Richard Tobe ’74, who was recently appointed deputy Erie County executive.
• Longtime City Court Judge Robert T. Russell’s bridge-term course looks at Housing Court and its relationship with Housing and Landlord-Tenant Court. The course explores housing and health code violations, property nuisance laws, the “Bawdy House Statute,” the doctrine of the “Warranty of Habitability,” demolitions and other issues.
• Students in a course taught by Helen Drew ’88, Professional Sports Contract Negotiation & Arbitration, get hands-on experience in the legal and practical skills necessary to negotiate and arbitrate a professional sports employment contract. The class will be divided into two-person teams representing management and players, and each team will research, prepare and actively negotiate and arbitrate a professional athlete’s contract.
• A bridge-term course in bankruptcy practice covers issues in consumer bankruptcy, a useful offering because most Law School courses address corporate, rather than consumer, bankruptcy. Taught by Morris L. Horwitz ’74, the course follows the handling of a consumer bankruptcy from client intake, through the analysis of assets and liabilities, choice of chapter (7 or 13), preparation of the petition and schedules, electronic filing, court proceedings and post-petition challenges.

Adjunct Professor Sharon Stern Gerstman to receive the American Bar Foundation’s Fellows Award

The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation has awarded SUNY Buffalo Law School Adjunct Professor Sharon Stern Gerstman the 2011 Outstanding State Chair Award. Also receiving this year’s award is Gerstman’s Co-Chair, Michael H. Byowitz of Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.

The Fellows Award is given annually to a State Chair (or State Co-Chairs) of The Fellows who has demonstrated a dedication to the work of the Foundation and the mission of The Fellows through exceptional efforts on behalf of The Fellows at the state level. The award will be presented at The Fellows’ 56th Annual Awards Banquet on Saturday, February 4, 2012, at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. [Read more about the Fellows Award]

Gerstman has taught New York Practice at SUNY Buffalo Law School since 1987 and is currently of counsel to Magavern Magavern Grimm LLP. Previously she was employed by New York Supreme Court as a court attorney/referee in Niagara County, and as principal law clerk to Hon. Joseph D. Mintz.

Stefanie Wiegand ’14 is one of four dual degree students to receive scholarships through the Medco Scholars Program

SUNY Buffalo Law student Stefanie Wiegand ’14 is one of four dual degree students to be awarded a $10,000 scholarship from the Medco Foundation. Four students were selected from a nation-wide pool of applicants to receive the new scholarship from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP)-administered program. Each awarded students will receive $2,500 per semester for four consecutive semesters, totaling $10,000 over two years.

Wiegand ’14 is pursuing a JD/ Pharm.D. dual degree at the University at Buffalo. In five years, she sees herself working for a pharmaceutical company in either their regulatory or intellectual property department, then transitioning to the Food and Drug Administration to work as a policy advisor. Wiegand would eventually like to start her own consulting firm and sit on a local hospital board. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in biology and German from Washington University in St. Louis. [View PDF]

Professor Lynn Mather to deliver the keynote address for “Regulating the Legal Profession” conference, in Dublin

Professor Lynn Mather has been invited to deliver the keynote address for the conference “Regulating the Legal Profession,” on Nov. 25, at the University College Dublin (UCD) in Dublin, Ireland. The conference will focus on proposed reforms to the legal profession in Ireland within the wider context of changes to the provision and regulation of legal services internationally. Panels will include internationally distinguished specialists in the regulation of the legal profession as well as discussants from various bodies with interests in the regulation of the legal profession.

Mather, a Professor of Law and Political Science at the University at Buffalo, is a leading scholar in the field of law and society. She has published extensively on lawyers, legal professionalism, women in the legal profession, courts in popular culture, litigation against tobacco, trial courts and public policy, divorce mediation, plea bargaining, and the transformation of disputes. She was director of the Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy, an endowed academic center for interdisciplinary research on law and legal institutions from 2002-2008. Before moving to UB Law School in 2002, Mather held the Nelson A. Rockefeller Chair in Government at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. While at Dartmouth, Mather served as department chair, acting director of the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences and, in 1995, was awarded the Dartmouth College Distinguished Teaching Award.

Professor Alfred S. Konefsky nominated for The Green Bag’s annual “Almanac & Reader of Exemplary Legal Writing”

University at Buffalo Distinguished Professor Alfred S. Konefsky has been nominated for inclusion in The Green Bag’s annual “Almanac & Reader of Exemplary Legal Writing” under the category of “Long Articles” for his piece, “Simon Greenleaf, Boston Elites, and the Social Meaning and Construction of the Charles River Bridge Case,” which appeared in Vol. 2 of Transformations in American Legal History, edited by Daniel W. Hamilton and Alfred L. Brophy, (Harvard University Press, 2011).

Over the next several weeks, The Green Bag’s board of advisers will select those works that should appear in the 2012 Almanac & Reader as “exemplars of good legal writing from the year just passed.”

Konefsky joined the law faculty in 1977 after serving as the Charles Warren Fellow in American Legal History at the Harvard Law School and as Editor of the Legal Papers of Daniel Webster at Dartmouth College. He teaches Contracts and a variety of courses in American Legal History, including the subject areas of the nineteenth century (from the Revolution to the Civil War), the colonial period, Law and American Labor History, American Constitutional History, and Melville and the Law. His research interests focus primarily on issues in nineteenth century American Legal History, including the ideology and role of legal professional elites and groups in a democratic culture, the relationship between legal doctrine and its social context, and the borderline between legal history and literary history.

Professor Engel delivers keynote address for major conference on law and human rights at Columbia University

SUNY Distinguished Service Professor David M. Engel delivered the keynote address “The Quest for Justice and the Conundrum of Rights” at a conference held at Columbia University on Thursday, November 10. The conference “Localizing Global Justice: Rethinking Law and Human Rights in Southeast Asia” brought together an international panel and will result in a publication.

Engel, a renowned specialist in interdisciplinary studies of “law and society,” has studied and written about Thai law for more than 30 years. In January, 2011, he was honored with the honorary degree of doctor of laws from Chiang Mai University in Thailand.

George M. Williams jr.’78 receives Lawyers Alliance Cornerstone Award for Outstanding Pro Bono Legal Services

George M. Williams jr.’78 and Junaid H. Chida, both of Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, are to receive the Lawyers Alliance Cornerstone Award for Outstanding Pro Bono Legal Services at the 2011 Cornerstone Award being held Tuesday, November 15, 2011, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Credit Suisse, One Madison Avenue in New York City.

Williams and Chida are being honored for their significant partner leadership that helped five low-income federal credit unions to receive a total of more than $4 million in funding through the Community Development Capital Initiative (CDCI), a program administered by the U.S. Treasury. These funds enable community development credit unions to provide extended capital, credit, and financial services to underserved constituents.

In praising Chida and Williams’ efforts on behalf of the credit unions impacted, Tongass Federal Credit Union Chief Executive Officer and President Susan Fisher says, “The CDCI loan money enabled us to step out boldly on projects and programs that we would not have been able to undertake for many years due to our low required reserves.” As a result, the credit union is building a branch on an island in Alaska where it will be the only financial institution serving an Alaska Native community.

The Lawyers Alliance for New York is a leading provider of business and transactional legal services for nonprofit organizations that are improving the quality of life in New York City neighborhoods. Their network of pro bono lawyers from law firms and corporations and staff of experienced attorneys collaborate to deliver expert corporate, tax, real estate, employment, intellectual property, and other legal services to community organizations. By connecting lawyers, nonprofits, and communities, they help nonprofits to develop affordable housing, stimulate economic development, promote community arts, and operate and advocate for vital programs for children and young people, the elderly, and other low-income New Yorkers.

UB Law Professor Charles Patrick Ewing elected president of the American Board of Forensic Psychology

SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Charles Patrick Ewing has been elected president of the American Board of Forensic Psychology (ABFP). He will serve as president-elect for 2012 and become president in 2013.

The American Board of Forensic Psychology originated from a Specialty Certification Study Committee of the American Psychology-Law society. Established in 1978 to protect the consumer of forensic psychological services, ABFP (also referred to as the “Forensic Board”) awards the Diploma in Forensic Psychology to those psychologists who satisfactorily complete the requirements for achieving Specialty Board Certification in forensic psychology. The Forensic Board operates as an affiliated member of the American Board of Professional Psychology, an organization of specialty boards recognized by the profession.

Ewing has been a board certified forensic psychologist since 1988. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of ABPP, having been elected to a six-year term in 2008. He currently serves as Vice Dean for Legal Skills at the University at Buffalo Law School, where he has taught for 25 years. A nationally known expert on the criminal mind, he has testified or been closely involved on some of the most celebrated and often grisly criminal cases in the country.