Students develop economic revival plans for Buffalo neighborhoods

Release Date: March 22, 2012

Don’t tell the students in the SUNY Buffalo Law School’s Regional Economic Development class the next big idea to revive Western New York communities isn’t sitting in plain sight — complete with reader-friendly illustrations.

That goal — bringing fresh economic development ideas to neighborhoods that need a boost– was the brainchild of the late UB President William R. Greiner. Over time, he recruited Law School Professor John H. Schlegel and two top community development players to teach in the course. The challenge was to create an innovative cross-disciplinary course — Regional Economic Development — intended to give law students practical experience in the subject, with a distinctive emphasis: bringing visualization to the legal debate.

At the same time, the course would let students attempt to identify a real need in the community, apply the theory learned in the classroom and then design a plan that would address this need.

Recently, the Regional Economic Development course added one more component. The law students would work with students in UB’s School of Architecture and Planning to give the projects what its instructor called a three-dimensional element, a quality that gives those looking at the proposals the opportunity to visualize what the actual project would look like far beyond the normal two-dimensional map-making.

“It’s the old line from ‘The Music Man.” ‘You’ve got to know the territory,’” says Schlegel, who took charge of the course after Greiner died in 2009. “You have to be able to see the site in the neighborhood. Seeing it will help you understand whether the local people will either embrace a project or reject it. And that will make the lawyer’s role more clear.”

The 14 students taking the course last semester produced five projects, which they presented this semester. Essential to their proposals was making them as visually interesting as possible. And that’s where students of Mitchell Bring — an architect and specialist in computer visualization and model-building, and an adjunct professor in UB’s School of Architecture and Planning — got involved.

Bring’s students worked with the law students to add “3-D visualization” to the projects.

“In the real world, lawyers are teamed up with urban planners and architects working with developers,” Bring said. “This gives the students a great opportunity to combine all their talents and abilities.”

Bring says those designing the course wanted to get the students and those reviewing the projects the ability “see the environment they were talking about.”

Schlegel had the benefit of sharing the teaching with two people recruited earlier by Greiner, people who clearly could bridge the gap between academic courses and real-world application: Richard Tobe ‘74, recently appointed Erie County deputy county executive, and James J. Allen, executive director of the Amherst Industrial Development Agency and an adjunct professor in the UB Department of Urban and Regional Planning.

The result were five student projects — all grounded in urban planning principles they studied in class — designed to address and fundamentally change a shortcoming in five Buffalo neighborhoods.

* “The “Heights Plaza” Proposal by Daniel Fabian, Joel Terragnoli, with Gun Hyoung Kim. Their plan to revitalize the University Heights neighborhood and the Lasalle Street neighborhood, includes a “virtual walk” around the neighborhood that provides a “bird’s eye view” of the changes in streets and amenities the students propose.

* “Railroad Renaissance: An Urbane North Buffalo Community” by Michael Cimasi,Shervin Rismani and Jeffrey Tyrpak, with Theresa DeCelis and Meng Yu. This project proposes a new “pedestrian friendly yet auto accessible” environment for the vacant Erie-Lackawanna Railroad corridor in North Buffalo between Delaware and Colvin avenues.

* “Encouraging Social and Economic Growth in Kenmore’s Delaware Avenue Business District” by Michael Herberger, Ryan McCarthy and Jacob McNamara, with Elnaz Haj Abotalebi. The students proposed changes include a gateway and pedestrian-exclusive zones in the heart of the Village of Kenmore.

* “The Rock: A look at Buffalo’s Black Rock Neighborhood Through the Eyes of Jane Jacobs” by Christina Akers, David Burgess and Megan VanWie with Troy Joseph. The students recommend short-term improvements: street lights, public benches and beautification projects; along with longer-term changes such as a pedestrian bridge.

* West Utica Street Triangle by Gretchen Sullivan and Christopher Szczygiel, with Zhaoyu Luo. The proposal suggests a “micro-loan” fund for residents limited to $1,000 each, a community land trust and specific changes such as an ethnic community kitchen, a community gym and an ice skating rink.

In-depth descriptions and visuals for all five projects are available upon request.

“The university values cross-disciplinary teaching and research,” Schlegel said. “Our approach may be a little odd, but it works. These law students will come out this better lawyers, especially those who will be doing development work.”

Dean Makau Mutua has been appointed to the Board of Directors for the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation

The Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation (ECHDC) today announced the appointments of Makau Mutua, Dean of the SUNY Buffalo Law School, Gary L. Ginsberg, Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Communications at Time Warner Inc., and Sam Hoyt, Regional President for Empire State Development, to the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation Board of Directors.

“Makau, Gary and Sam are consummate professionals whose years of expertise as leaders in the academia, business and public service sectors will help us create jobs and grow the local economy,” said Empire State Development President, CEO & Commissioner Kenneth Adams. “I look forward to putting their extensive credentials to work for the people of Western New York as key members of our economic development team.”

Makau Mutua said, “The work that ECHDC has done is changing perceptions about Buffalo, and I look forward to building on the progress that has already been achieved. I hope to collaborate with the board and staff to develop a waterfront that will offer something for all of the citizens of our community. I thank Governor Cuomo for this opportunity.”

Gary L. Ginsberg said, “I am grateful for this appointment and honored that Governor Cuomo has asked me to be part of this team. As a native son, I have long believed that Buffalo’s future is tied to its waterfront, and I am excited to use my private sector experience in marketing and communications to assist ECHDC with their efforts to transform Western New York’s greatest asset.”

Sam Hoyt said, “ECHDC has reached a tipping point with seven active construction projects, unprecedented visitors to Canalside and public involvement at every step. In recent years we have laid the groundwork that has made Canalside a destination for the public. Now the private sector is expressing genuine interest in investing on the waterfront. ECHDC has pursued a course that is consistent with Governor Cuomo’s public/private model of economic development and job creation.”

Mr. Mutua is a SUNY Distinguished Professor and the Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar. In addition to his duties as Dean, he teaches international human rights, international business transactions and international law and has conducted numerous human rights, diplomatic and rule of law missions to countries in Africa, Latin America and Europe. He serves as the Chairman of the Kenya Human Rights Commission and was a delegate to the Kenyan National Constitutional Conference. A frequent commentator on politics, human rights, law and current affairs in the print and electronic media, he was educated at the University of Nairobi, the University of Dar-es-Salaam and at Harvard Law School, where he obtained a Doctorate of Juridical Science in 1987. He has authored human rights reports for the United Nations and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Gary L. Ginsberg is the Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Communications at Time Warner Inc. Before joining Time Warner, Mr. Ginsberg was the Executive Vice President of Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs at News Corporation where he coordinated and executed the Company’s global marketing and investor relations programs, as well as its corporate affairs, strategic communications and philanthropic efforts. Previously, he was a senior editor and counsel at George, the monthly political magazine, and a former Assistant Counsel to President Clinton. He is a graduate of the Columbia University School of Law and received his undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Brown University. Mr. Ginsberg is a member of the Board of Directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; the Newseum, the national news museum; New Visions for Public Schools; and New York Cares. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Sam Hoyt oversees efforts to recruit new business, as well as support existing business, for the western region of New York State. Prior to joining Empire State Development, Mr. Hoyt served for almost 20 years as the Assembly representative for the 144th Assembly District located in Western New York. Mr. Hoyt’s career in public service is marked by a commitment to community-centric change centering on four guiding goals: making state and local governments more efficient and accountable to taxpayers, revitalizing neighborhoods, increasing economic opportunity and developing waterfront. He currently serves as Chair of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority.

“During the past several months, ECHDC has reached critical mass in terms of public engagement and real construction,” said ECHDC President Thomas P. Dee. “Our new board members bring a wealth of knowledge and experience that will serve our community well. I look forward to working with them on the revitalization of Western New York’s waterfront.”

Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation is a subsidiary agency of Empire State Development Corporation whose vision is to revitalize Western New York’s waterfront and restore economic growth to Buffalo based on the region’s legacy of pride, urban significance and natural beauty.

SUNY Buffalo Law School Holds 39th Annual Albert R. Mugel National Tax Law Moot Court Competition

The SUNY Buffalo Law School hosted the 39th annual Albert R. Mugel Tax Moot Court Competition in downtown Buffalo from March 1 to 3. Seventeen teams representing law schools from all regions of the United States — including teams from as far away as Spokane, Washington — came to Buffalo to participate in this prominent national moot court competition.

It is one of the oldest moot court contests in the country to be devoted exclusively to tax law.

This year’s tax problem, formulated by SUNY Buffalo Law Associate Professor Stuart Lazar, questioned whether cosmetic surgery undergone in connection with a sex-change operation could qualify as a deductible medical expense and the limits of the “innocent spouse” doctrine.

In the Competition’s final round on March 3, a team from John Marshall Law School of Chicago faced off against a team from Gonzaga Law School in the Erie County Supreme Court’s Ceremonial Courtroom. The final round was judged by Hon. Leslie G. Foschio, Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court – WDNY; Sharon Stern Gerstman, Esq. of Magavern Magavern Grimm, LLP; Ralph L. Halpern, Esq. of Jaeckle Fleischmann & Mugel, LLP; and Teia M. Bui, Esq. of Gross Shuman Brizdle & Gilfillan P.C. The John Marshall Law School team was the 2012 Albert R. Mugel Competition winner.

One of SUNY Buffalo Law’s two teams, composed of Claire Fortin ’12, and Stephen Bennett ’12 advanced to the semi-final round, and Bennett was awarded third place in the best oralist category. The other SUNY Buffalo Law team, Craig Anderson ’13 and Kevin Campbell ’13, won second-place in the “Best Brief” category.

The Best Brief award was won by John Paul Bratcher and Lauren Zdunk from Ohio Northern Law School, and the top oralist overall was Margaret Mares from John Marshall Law School.

Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of this Competition, and special plans are underway to mark the occasion. The Buffalo Moot Court Board looks forward to hosting this event again next year and to drawing, yet again, a diverse body of competitors representing all regions of the United States.

Albert R. Mugel, in whose honor the Competition is named, was a former professor at the SUNY Buffalo Law School and was a renowned member of the Buffalo legal community. He was a founder of Jaeckle Fleischmann & Mugel, one of the region’s largest law firms, where he concentrated his practice in income, estate and gift taxation. The competition was founded by SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus Kenneth F. Joyce, who formulated its problem for many years.

SUNY Buffalo Law School Clinic and the Verizon Foundation Team Up to Assist Pet-Owning Domestic Violence Victims

Domestic violence victims often remain in abusive relationships to prevent their partner from harming or killing their pets. The SUNY Buffalo Law School Women, Children, and Social Justice Clinic’s new project, Animal Shelter Options for Domestic Violence Victims, is designed to remove this barrier to safety for individuals and their pets. With funding from Verizon and collaboration from the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), law school faculty and students are working to provide individuals seeking emergency shelter with resources to help protect their pets as well as raise awareness about barriers escaping domestic violence faced by victims who have animals.

Professor Suzanne Tomkins, director of the Clinic, explains “we know first hand from catastrophes like Katrina that individuals will not seek safety if they have to leave their pets behind. Our goal is to reduce a very real barrier for abused individuals seeking safety by knowing their pets are cared for and safe.”

Data demonstrate the reality of the link between domestic violence and pet abuse. Seventy-one percent of pet-owning women entering shelters reported that their batterer had harmed killed or threatened family pets for revenge or to psychologically control victims. Likewise, between 25 and 40 percent of battered women with pets feel helpless to escape abusive situations because they worry about what will happen to their animals should they leave.

Other startling statistics: 100% of serial killers started out by abusing animals; 52% of aggravated assaults started out by abusing animals; 48% of rapists started out by abusing animals; 46% of sexual murderers started out by abusing animals; and 30% of pedophiles started out by abusing animals. Although an increasing number of shelters have added kennels or instituted animal foster care programs in an effort to protect victims, their children, and their pets, more needs to be done.

In October 2010, three regional seminars hosted by the DCJS’ Violence Against Women’s Unit along with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), and the New York State Humane Association examined these issues and how they impacted New York. Shortly afterward, DCJS started a survey seeking information on existing relationships between domestic violence shelters and animal shelters to provide emergency shelter for pets. The SUNY Buffalo Law School’s Women, Children, and Social Justice Clinic was brought on board to create a more formal survey, administer it to domestic violence agencies and animal shelters across the state, and develop the database.

This database, which is the first its kind in New York State, is available online. Organized by county, it provides domestic violence victims, domestic violence agencies, law enforcement and advocates with information on programs that can either house victim’s pets or include direct referral systems to agencies that will accept a victim’s pets. The database also includes animal agencies that, even if they don’t yet have a direct partnership with a domestic violence organization, will provide shelter for domestic violence victim’s pets. As Kim Oppelt, program specialist in the Violence Against Women unit of DCJS, remarked “As we consider how to locally address this nationwide dilemma, we are excited that the SUNY Buffalo clinic is helping develop a New York database to ease this very common problem facing domestic violence victims.”

The Clinic’s work will have immediate, practical impact. For example, a link will be made available in the “Domestic and Sexual Violence” section on the Law Enforcement Suite of eJusticeNY to aid officers in assisting victims of domestic violence at the scene. With this new database, officers will have viable options for victims and their pets at the time of the incident.

In addition to creating and implementing the database, the Clinic is working closely with the surrounding counties comprising Western New York to bring awareness to this project and to demonstrate ways in which communities can provide temporary shelter for pets. Clinic faculty and students will travel throughout the region demonstrating the capabilities of the database and to present on the laws associated with the protection of pets of victims of domestic violence.

As law student Karalyn Rossi said, “This clinic project allows me to work in two areas of law that excite me – animal rights and domestic violence. It is so rewarding to know that my research is being applied directly to help victims with pets as they seek shelter.”

SUNY Buffalo Law School students compete in national moot court competition

Twelve students from SUNY Buffalo Law School recently competed in the Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition (FDMCC), held during the Northeast Black Law Student Association Convention on January 25-29. The FDMCC is a national appellate advocacy competition organized each year since 1975 by the National Black Law Student Association, the largest law student organization in the United States.

In the 2012 FDMCC Northeast Regionals, two of the teams to make the regional “Sweet Sixteen” were from the Law School: Shea Kolar ‘13 and Benjamin Wolf ‘13, Kimberly Worling ‘13 and Meghan Corcoran ‘13. Worling and Corcoran then progressed to the Competition’s quarterfinal “Elite Eight”.

This year’s Law School participants also included David Dechellis ‘13, Mark Detwiler ‘13, Amber Diem ‘13, Paul Iya ‘13, Natalie Pellegrino ‘13, Richard Porter ‘13, as well as Jared Vega ‘14 and Eamon Kelleher ‘13, who participated in the brief-writing portion of the Competition.

In order to be chosen to represent the Law School in the FDMCC, students are required to compete in an intramural selection process by submitting a case brief and making a mock oral argument. Successful competitors are then matched into teams of two. For the FDMCC itself, each team is required to complete a thirty-page brief based upon a fictional fact pattern presenting constitutional issues. At the Northeast Regional Competition, teams are required to argue at least three times before advancing to the Sweet Sixteen round. This year’s fact pattern dealt with a potentially discriminatory state immigration statute, possible prosecutorial misconduct by a United States attorney, and the possibility that certain language in the federal tax code might be unconstitutionally vague.

SUNY Buffalo Law School has participated in the Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition for many years.

Law School to host student-faculty discussion on the status of redistricting efforts in New York State

MEDIA ADVISORY

Democracy Deferred?
Student-Faculty Discussion: New York’s 2012 State Legislative and Congressional Districts
Wednesday, Feb. 22, 1:50 p.m.
509 O’Brian Hall, University at Buffalo, North Campus
Lunch will be provided.

Contact: Andrew Dean ‘14, amdean@buffalo.edu
(315) 794-9098

On Wednesday, February 22, SUNY Buffalo Law School will host “Democracy Deferred?,” a student-faculty discussion on the status of redistricting efforts in New York State. The discussion will take place from 1:50 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. in the Baldy Center Conference Room (509 O’Brian Hall) at the University at Buffalo North Campus.

In January, a group of first-year students at SUNY Buffalo Law School won first-place in Fordham University’s Congressional Redistricting Competition for drawing the New York Congressional Districts using a number of objective criteria. The students will discuss their methodology, goals, and the ongoing success of their efforts to achieve redistricting reform. The winning students were Nutan Sewdath, Eric Tabache, Jacob Drum, Matt Burrows, Lauren Skompinski and Andrew Dean.

Professor James Gardner and law student Andrew Dean ’14 will present on the New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment’s (LATFOR) proposed State Legislative districts. Associate Professor Michael Halberstam will moderate the discussion.

Members of the public, media, faculty and students are encouraged to attend.

Participants:

• UB Student Team, 2012 NYS Redistricting Competition Winners: Andrew Dean ’14, Lauren Skompinski ’14, Eric Tabache ’14, Matt Burrows ’14, Nutan Sewdath ’14, Jacob Drum ’14
• Professor James Gardner, Consultant to Common Cause’s NYS Redistricting Effort
• Associate Professor Michael Halberstam, Commentator

On Being a Black Lawyer (OBABL) names Makau Mutua one of the most influential black attorneys in the U.S.

On Being a Black Lawyer (OBABL) recently selected the 100 most influential black attorneys in the United States. SUNY Buffalo Law School is very pleased to announce that Dean Makau Mutua has been named to this exceptional group.

OBABL will publish “The Power 100 Special Edition” on February 15th in honor of Black History Month. The publication will be available online and will feature profiles of the nation’s most influential black attorneys working in government, academics, and both the public and private sectors.

Makau Mutua is Dean, SUNY Distinguished Professor, and the Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar at SUNY Buffalo Law School, the State University of New York. He teaches international human rights, international business transactions, and international law. Dean Mutua has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, the University of Iowa College of Law, the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica, and the University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain.

He was educated at the University of Nairobi, the University of Dar-es-Salaam, and at Harvard Law School, where he obtained a Doctorate of Juridical Science in 1987. Professor Mutua was Co-Chair of the 2000 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (ASIL). He is currently a Vice President of the ASIL, and was previously on its Executive Council. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 2002-03, while on sabbatical in Kenya, Professor Mutua was appointed by the Government of Kenya as Chairman of the Task Force on the Establishment of a Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission. The Task Force recommended a truth commission for Kenya. During the same time, Professor Mutua was a delegate to the National Constitutional Conference, the forum that produced a contested draft constitution for Kenya.

Previously, Professor Mutua was the Associate Director at the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program. He was also the Director of the Africa Project at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. He serves as the Chairman of the Kenya Human Rights Commission and sits on the boards of several international organizations and academic journals such as the Leiden Journal of International Law. He is a frequent commentator on politics, human rights, law, and current affairs in the print and electronic media.

OBABL’s editorial team, together with a group of advisers, spent months researching prospective candidates. The selection committee read trade publications, blogs, and critical reviews. A portion of the candidates had appeared on past lists of influential lawyers. For this group, the committee considered whether the candidate’s influence and relevance had increased since the time he or she was last honored. In addition to naming the 100 most influential black attorneys, the committee also included profiles of ten up and coming black attorneys.

OBABL publisher, Yolanda Young notes that according to the American Bar Association, less than 5% of U.S. attorneys are African American. OBABL seeks to help advance diversity in the legal profession.

On Being a Black Lawyer has been recognized by the American Bar Association, National Black Law Students Association, and National Association of Black Journalists. Founded in 2008 as a news and resource center, the company has grown into a social media firm providing research, career development, and brand marketing opportunities to clients.

On February 15th, read “The Power 100 Special Edition.”

Honorees will be toasted at a cocktail reception at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC on February 29, 2012 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Michelle Miller, CBS News correspondent, will serve as Mistress of Ceremony. To cover the reception or request an interview, please contact Jamie Brathwaite at 202-756-1847.

Intensive summer program opens the world of law to promising minority students

Visit the UB Undergraduate Scholars Program website

About two dozen college students will spend four weeks on the University at Buffalo campus this summer to learn about the law and legal studies, develop their writing and test-taking skills, and imagine the possibilities of life as an attorney.

The UB Undergraduate Scholars Program is being sponsored jointly by SUNY Buffalo Law School, the Minority Bar Association of Western New York, and UB’s Millard Fillmore College. Underwritten by the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) Discoverlaw.org, the program will run from June 1 to June 29 this year. It will bring to UB’s North Campus rising sophomores and juniors who represent racial minorities underrepresented in the legal profession.

“The goal,” says Lillie V. Wiley-Upshaw, SUNY Buffalo Law School’s vice dean for admissions and financial aid, “is to encourage these academically promising students to consider law school and to help them acquire the tools they’ll need to succeed.

“Fewer than 10 percent of all attorneys are people of color,” Wiley-Upshaw says, “and that’s certainly not representative of our country. As the State of New York’s law school, we have a responsibility to help change that in our own region and community.”

The three-year commitment for the summer program is being funded with a $300,000 grant from the Law School Admission Council, a national organization that provides services to support the law school admissions process and administers the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). It was a competitive process and the Law School was one of three law schools selected for funding.

Twenty students from Western New York, plus five from Morehouse College in Atlanta, will live in the newly built Greiner Hall during the summer, alongside current SUNY Buffalo Law students who will support them in their academic work. Four SUNY Buffalo Law faculty members will volunteer their time:

• Professor James Wooten will teach a week-long Introduction to Law course, introducing the students to the skills of argumentation.
• Associate Professor Michael Halberstam will introduce the students to Civil and Criminal Procedure and introduce the ethical requirements of the legal profession.
• Professor Charles Patrick Ewing will teach Evidence and Trial Practice, laying out the rules of evidence and their application in adversarial trial practice.
• Professor David Engel will teach Tort Law in Culture and Society, exploring the principles of tort liability for personal injuries.

In addition, the students will be taught the skills of legal analysis, writing and research, for which their teachers will include LAWR staff instructors Johanna Oreskovic and Bernadette Clor; receive intensive coaching on the fundamentals of writing; learn about LSAT test-taking strategies from Barbara Sherk, director of academic support at SUNY Buffalo Law; and learn from Wiley-Upshaw how to navigate the law school admissions process.

Students will also have opportunities to network with members of the Minority Bar Association; reflect on the profession through panel discussions of practitioners; hear from distinguished guest speakers, including Law School Dean Makau W. Mutua and Buffalo City Court Judge E. Jeannette Ogden; and tour Buffalo’s Family Court.

The students also will be hosted by the Hon. Paula L. Feroleto, the Eighth Judicial District Administrative Judge for a half-day program which will include an actual court session. The UB Undergraduate Scholars Program will culminate in a mock oral argument in which students will try out the skills and knowledge they have gained.

Student participants in the program will be paid a stipend of $900 to help defray lost income from summer employment. Applications are now available and can be found on the law school’s website. The application deadline is March 16th.For more information, please contact the Law School’s Admissions Office at (716) 645-2907 or law-admissions@buffalo.edu.

Major grant will fund study to improve the lives of kids in foster care

Making tax dollars devoted to child welfare work most effectively for children is the focus of a promising two-year study led by a SUNY Buffalo Law School professor.

The study, funded with a newly announced $270,269 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, capitalizes on a rich trove of data from Ohio child welfare agencies. It is being led by Professor Susan Vivian Mangold, co-director of the Program for Excellence in Family Law at SUNY Buffalo Law School. Her co-investigators are Dr. Catherine Cerulli, a 1992 UB Law graduate who is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical School, and Gregory Kapcar, legislative director of the Public Children’s Services Association of Ohio (PCSAO). The data has been collected by PCSAO for over a decade and includes both funding and child outcome data.

The grant is one of 15 announced Jan. 24 by the foundation’s Public Health Law Research Program, whose mission is to promote the effective use of law to improve public health.

Mangold’s project addresses the question: Does the source and/or type of funding, not just the amount of funding, affect health outcomes for children in foster care? The study will examine 10 years’ worth of data from the 88 counties in Ohio, 45 of which have a dedicated local tax levy that provides flexible local child welfare funding. Eighteen other counties have unusual flexibility in how they spend federal funding for children in foster care, as part of an experiment by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The quality outcomes under study include number of days spent in foster care, days a child waits before he or she is adopted, and cases of recurrent maltreatment. HHS uses these factors to measure the quality of child welfare programs, and, says Mangold, all of them are “directly related to mental health challenges for kids in foster care.”

Already, Mangold says, data analysis has shown that in counties with local tax levies dedicated to child welfare, children in the foster care system experience better quality outcomes. The effect is magnified in counties that also received HHS allocations under the federal Title IV-E waiver program, which gives counties greater flexibility in spending that funding than HHS normally grants. So, Mangold says, in counties with both local and HHS flexible funding, children waited less than a year, on average, for adoption; in counties with just one form of flexible funding, they waited three years; and in counties without flexible funding, they waited over six years.

“Whatever we measured with [flexible funding] as a variable, we found these stunning outcomes,” Mangold says. “The question now is, what can we learn from these correlations? Why does the funding source make any difference?”

To tease out the reason that flexible funding streams lead to better outcomes for children in foster care, investigators will survey the child welfare directors of all Ohio counties, then conduct in-depth interviews with 30 randomly selected directors.

The goal of the study, Mangold says, is not to persuade other counties or states to pass new taxes dedicated to child welfare, but rather that all levels of government will use the results to revise the requirements they impose on how child welfare funding is used – ensuring that it most effectively benefits young people.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant, she says, not only covers the cost of the research, but includes consultation on its methodology and how to disseminate its results in the community of child welfare scholars and advocates.

Since its founding in 1887, SUNY Buffalo Law School – the State University of New York system’s only law school – has established an excellent reputation and is widely regarded as a leader in legal education. Its cutting-edge curriculum provides both a strong theoretical foundation and the practical tools graduates need to succeed in a competitive marketplace, wherever they choose to practice. A special emphasis on interdisciplinary studies, public service and opportunities for hands-on clinical education makes SUNY Buffalo Law unique among the nation’s premier public law schools.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB’s more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities.

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.