Brooklyn Law School

Brooklyn Law School
Students in front of Brooklyn Law School's main building located at 250 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, New York
Established	1901
Type	Private
Endowment	$115 million [1]
President	Joan G. Wexler
Dean	Michael A. Gerber (interim)
Students	486 (417 Full-Time, 69 Part-Time)
Location	Brooklyn, New York, USA
Campus	Urban
Website	www.brooklaw.edu

Brooklyn Law School (BLS) is a law school located in Brooklyn Heights, in Downtown Brooklyn, New York.

Contents 1 History 2 Rankings 3 Career Prospects 4 Location and Facilities 5 Faculty 6 Journals and Moot Court 6.1 Journals 6.2 Moot Court 6.3 Jerome Prince Evidence Competition 7 Academic Offerings 7.1 Centers 7.2 Clinics 7.3 Fellowship Programs 7.4 LL.M. Degree Program 7.5 Joint Degree Programs 7.6 Study Abroad Initiatives 7.6.1 Summer Abroad 7.6.2 Semester Abroad 8 Student Organizations 8.1 Former Deans 9 Notable alumni 9.1 Historically significant alumni 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

[edit] History

Founded in 1901 by William Payson Richardson and Norman P. Heffley, Brooklyn Law School was the first law school on Long Island.^[2] Using space provided by Heffley’s business school, the law school opened Sept. 30, 1901 with five faculty members (including Richardson as dean and Heffley as president) and two special lecturers.

The year began with five students and ended with 28.^[3] In late 1901, the Board of Regents of the State of New York granted a charter to the Law School. The Law School became fully accredited by the American Bar Association through the Council of its Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. The Law School’s curriculum is registered with and approved by the New York State Education Department.^[4] Within one year, Brooklyn Law School’s enrollment had increased to 112.^[5]

From its earliest days, Brooklyn Law School opened its door to minorities, women, and immigrants, and it offered night classes for those with full-time jobs. Dean Richardson also allowed students who had trouble paying tuition to remain enrolled on credit. The school moved twice between 1901 and 1928, when it finally moved into the first building designed and built specifically for it on Pearl Street in downtown Brooklyn. Though the school lacked a campus, dormitories, and a cafeteria, students could engage in a wide range of extracurricular activities.

World War II struck Brooklyn Law School especially hard, and by 1943, enrollment was down to 174 students. St. Lawrence University, which until then operated Brooklyn Law School and conferred its degrees, decided to shut down the school. Prominent alumni were galvanized into action and negotiated the repurchase of the school’s assets, ensuring that Brooklyn Law School would operate as an independent institution.^[6]

[edit] Rankings

• The 2009 edition of U.S. News ranked Brooklyn Law School 61st in its list of top 100 law schools.^[7]†
• The 2009 Leiter Report ranked Brooklyn Law School 39th nationwide in Student Quality based on the 2008 entering class.^[8]
• In the 2008-2009 term, six alumni clerked with federal circuit judges, placing BLS 19th in the country, according to the 2009 Leiter Report ranking. Three worked for judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, two for the Eleventh Circuit, and one for the Third Circuit.^[9]
• The 2008 Leiter Report ranked Brooklyn 25th in the "Most 'Prestigious' Law Firm Placement" category.^[10]

[edit] Career Prospects

In 2007, Brooklyn Law School stated in its brochures that recent graduates working in private law firms earned a median salary of over $100,000.^[11] In October of that year, the Wall Street Journal reported that this figure was based on a survey of fewer than half of all graduates who were working in private law firms.^[12]

Similarly, the school reported that 41% of 2006 graduates worked for firms of more than 100 lawyers.^[13] However, the 2007 Journal article pointed out that this percentage included temporary attorneys, who work on a contract basis - often for hourly wages and no benefits.^[14] Joan King, director of the school's career center, said the number of Brooklyn graduates who were contract attorneys was "minimal" but declined to give the Journal a number.^[15]

The nine-month employment rate for the Class of 2009 was 91.3%. The median starting salary for graduates who reported their salary information to the law school was $160,000 at firms with more than 250 attorneys, $150,000 at firms with more than 100 attorneys but fewer than 250, $118,500 at firms with up to 100 attorneys, $81,250 for corporations, and $62,300 for judicial clerks. 54.5% of BLS '09 graduates found work at law firms and 47% at firms with more than 100 attorneys.^[16]

[edit] Location and Facilities

Brooklyn Law School’s academic and administrative buildings and ten student residences are located in Brooklyn Heights Historical District, across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan, where many federal and state courts and corporate and public interest law offices are located.

Brooklyn Law School’s main academic building at 250 Joralemon Street houses classrooms, faculty offices, a conference center, dining hall, and a four-story law library with 550,000 volumes. The office building across the street at One Boerum Place houses many of the law school’s clinics, the student journals, the bookstore, and administrative offices.

Brooklyn Law School guarantees housing in its residences to all entering students, about 550 in all. The largest residence is Feil Hall, a 21-story building at 205 State Street. Designed by noted architect Robert A. M. Stern, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, it accommodates about 360 students in 239 furnished apartments of varying sizes and includes a conference center and café.

All the student residences are within a short walk of the main building. In addition to Feil Hall, the law school owns and operates nine other residences, a combination of brownstones and apartment buildings, in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood.

[edit] Faculty

Brooklyn Law School’s faculty includes sixty nine full-time professors and four emeriti faculty.^[17] It also draws on a large body of practitioners, public officials and judges as adjunct faculty to teach specialized courses in many areas of law, including trial advocacy, business crimes and corporate litigation, sports law, real estate development, and border and homeland security law. In addition, in any given semester, visiting professors come from all over the United States and from around the world to teach at the school.

The law school is home to several well-known scholars, including torts expert Aaron Twerski, who holds the Irwin and Jill Cohen Professor of Law Chair at the school and Rose L. Hoffer Professor of Law Elizabeth Schneider, an expert on gender, law and civil procedure. Both were highly ranked in Brian Leiter’s survey of “Most Cited Law Professors by Specialty.”^[18]

Other notables include professors Roberta Karmel and Neil Cohen who write regular columns for The New York Law Journal, and Susan Herman, who is the president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

In recent years, the law school has hired a number of new junior faculty members whose work draws on a variety of influences to contribute scholarship in areas as diverse as copyfraud to law and religion, international business law, land use planning, and the secondary mortgage market.

[edit] Journals and Moot Court

This section includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (June 2009)

[edit] Journals

The Law School currently publishes four student-edited law journals: the Brooklyn Law Review, Brooklyn Journal of International Law, the Journal of Law and Policy, and the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial and Commercial Law. Over 290 second and third-year students have the opportunity to write for one of the journals.^[19]

All four student journals select new members based on writing ability and academic achievement. Each journal selects members by the membership competition submissions and grades received during the first year of law school. Each journal requires that its members be in the top 75% of their class.

[edit] Moot Court

The Law School has both trial and appellate advocacy moot court divisions. Each year it enters approximately 30 teams in national moot court competitions. These competitions span all areas of the law, from family law to criminal procedure, from white-collar crime to international law.

In 2009, BLS took home top international, national, and regional titles. Its teams won second place in the Vanderbilt National First Amendment Moot Court Competition^[20] and in the St. John's University National Civil Rights Competition. BLS students were regional winners of the ABA Labor and Employment Trial Advocacy Competition and awarded Top Oralists among 64 teams in the Vis International Commercial Arbitration Competition.^[21]

[edit] Jerome Prince Evidence Competition

Each year Brooklyn Law School hosts the Jerome Prince Memorial Evidence Competition, a national moot court competition. Named in honor of the late BLS Dean and renowned evidence scholar, the competition draws over 30 law school teams from across the country. Many of the students from the Moot Court Honor Society are involved in the coordination of the Prince Competition, and a few students have an opportunity to work with faculty members to research and write the problem – an issue at the forefront of evidentiary law – that is used in the Competition.

[edit] Academic Offerings

Brooklyn Law School offers students over 190 courses and seminars in the law.

[edit] Centers

BLS centers focus on a specific area of the law, offering a range of programs, including named lectures, symposia, forums, and round table discussions that address emerging issues.

• Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law - Established by the Law School to study and shape international business law and policy.^[22]
• Center for Law Language and Cognition – Explores how developments in the cognitive sciences – including psychology, neuroscience and linguistics – have implications for the law at both theoretical and practical levels.^[23]
• Center for Health, Science and Public Policy - Provides students knowledge and skills necessary in health and science law.^[24]

[edit] Clinics

In 2009, BLS' clinical program was ranked 28th in the nation. In 2010, The National Jurist ranked BLS fourth in the country for its public service work, largely influenced by its clinical program. The clinics specialize in the areas of bankruptcy, securities arbitration, immigration, criminal law, real estate practice, intellectual property, and mediation. Students represent individual clients, groups and businesses and appear in state, federal, and administrative courts, on both the trial and appellate levels. Approximately 75% of full-time students participate in at least one in-house clinic or externship prior to graduation. [17] Of the 18 clinics, three are listed here. [18]

• The Brooklyn Law Incubator and Policy Clinic, (BLIP) functions like a law firm that represents Internet, new media, communications and other tech entrepreneurs and innovators on both business and policy advocacy. Students work with clients on transactional, litigation, policy and other advocacy projects and interact and strategize with members of the entrepreneurial, technology and financial communities, as well as with legislators, regulators and other policymakers.
• Capital Defender and Federal Habeas Clinic, affords students the opportunity to represent death row inmates (post-conviction) in other states and defendants in New York who have filed federal habeas corpus petitions. The work consists of filing petitions in the U.S. Supreme Court.
• The Investor Rights Clinic is part of BLS Legal Services, Inc., which is a not-for-profit organization that provides legal services to individuals who have disputes with their broker/broker-dealer as a consequence of broker misconduct. Disputes are typically resolved through negotiation, mediation or through a FINRA sponsored arbitration hearing. Clinic clients are low-moderate income earners with little or no investment experience and who may have been the victim of fraudulent practices.

[edit] Fellowship Programs

• International Business Law Fellowship - provides an educational experience for students interested in pursuing careers in the field.^[25]
• Sparer Public Interest Law Fellowship - places fellows in summer internships at public interest organizations across the United States and abroad.^[26]
• The Zaretsky Bankruptcy and Commercial Law Fellowship - offers a select path of study for a Law School student who has demonstrated outstanding academic achievement in either bankruptcy or commercial law, and is interested in pursuing a career in either of those fields.^[27]

[edit] LL.M. Degree Program

Brooklyn Law School offers an LL.M. program for foreign-trained lawyers:^[28]

The program facilitates specialized study in three subject areas: business law, intellectual property law, and refugee and immigration law.

[edit] Joint Degree Programs

Brooklyn Law School offers five joint degree programs:^[29]

• J.D./Masters of Business Administration - Brooklyn Law School and Baruch College jointly sponsor a program leading to the degrees of Juris Doctor (J.D.) and a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) in Business Administration and Policy.
• J.D./Masters in City and Regional Planning - Brooklyn Law School and Pratt Institute jointly sponsor a program leading to the degrees of Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Master of Science (M.Sc.) in City and Regional Planning.
• J.D./Masters in Library and Information Science - Brooklyn Law School and the Graduate School of Information and Library Science of Pratt Institute jointly sponsor a program leading to the degrees of Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Master of Science in Library and Information Science (M.Sc.).
• J.D./Masters in Political Science - Brooklyn Law School and Brooklyn College (City University of New York) jointly sponsor a program leading to the award of the degrees of Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Master of Arts (M.A.) in Political Science, with a concentration in Policy Analysis.
• J.D./Master in Urban Planning - Brooklyn Law School and Hunter College's Graduate Program in the Department of Urban Planning (Urban Affairs and Planning) jointly sponsor a program leading to the degrees of Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Master of Urban Planning (M.U.P.).

[edit] Study Abroad Initiatives

[edit] Summer Abroad

Brooklyn Law School, in conjunction with Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, sponsors two summer abroad programs each year. Students study international and comparative law for two or three weeks in one of two locations: Beijing or Bologna.^[30]

• The Beijing Program is hosted at China’s University of International Business and Economics (UIBE). The program offers students the opportunity to study international bankruptcy and Chinese law. Courses are taught in English by faculty from BLS and Loyola, with lectures by members of UBIE’s Law Faculty. The program also allows time for visits to local cultural and legal institutions and for meeting Chinese law students.
• The Bologna Program is hosted by the University of Bologna. Founded in the 11th century, it is the oldest university in Europe, and a center of law study since the Middle Ages. Courses in international business law and comparative topics are taught by faculty from American and European law schools.

[edit] Semester Abroad

• Exchange Program with Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany

Each year, the Law School selects two students to attend Bucerius Law School during the fall semester while two Bucerius students study at Brooklyn Law School. The Bucerius Law School Program in International and Comparative Business Law is designed to develop and expand students' understanding of the forces that shape international business law and offers a unique opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of German, European, and international law. Courses are taught in English by a combination of American law school professors and international professors of law.^[31]

• Exchange Program with University of Essex in Colchester, England

The University of Essex exchange program allows two Brooklyn Law School students every semester to study at the University of Essex while two English students are chosen to study at the Law School for a full academic year. The focus of the program is on international human rights and European Union law.

• Exchange Program with University College Cork in Cork, Ireland

Brooklyn Law School's exchange program with University College Cork (UCC) gives two Brooklyn Law School students each semester the opportunity to study at UCC, a college founded in 1845 with a Law Faculty that is the largest department in the University. Two Cork students spend an academic year at the Law School. Brooklyn Law School students have the ability to learn many legal subjects from an Irish law perspective, as well as many topics from an international and comparative stance.

• Exchange Program with Hong Kong University in Hong Kong, China

Two Brooklyn Law School students have the option of studying in Hong Kong for a semester in exchange for two Hong Kong University students attending Brooklyn Law School for the year. Due to China's rapid social and economic development and Hong Kong's location in the Pacific Rim, the program courses focus mostly on Chinese commercial law, human-rights law and international corporate and financial law. Except for some courses offered in the LL.M. program (e.g., Chinese Law), the course instruction is in English.

• Exchange Program with Universidad Torcuato Di Tello in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Brooklyn Law School recently added this program to allow students to study law in Spanish from a Civil Law system perspective. The program highlights courses in tax law, law and economics, business law, law and finance, criminal law, and law and public policy.

[edit] Student Organizations

Brooklyn Law School’s numerous student led organizations reflect the diversity of the student body.

Student Organizations Include:

• Alternative Dispute Resolution Society (ADR)
• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
• Art Law Association (ALA)
• Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA)
• Black Law Students Association (BLSA)
• BLS Softball Organization
• Brooklyn Chess Society (BCS)
• Brooklyn Entertainment and Sports Law Society (BESLS)
• Brooklyn Law School Democrats
• Brooklyn Law School Food & Wine Club (BLS FWC)
• Brooklyn Law School Secular Legal Society
• Brooklyn Law Students for the Public Interest (BLSPI)
• Brooklyn Real Estate Society
• Business Law Association (BLA)
• Christian Legal Society (CLS)
• Civil Legal Advice and Resource Office Student Action Group (CLARO/SAG)
• Delta Theta Phi (DTP)
• Eastern European Law Students Association (EELSA)
• Environmental Law Society (ELS)
• Federalist Society
• Health Law and Policy Association (HLPA)
• Intellectual Property Law Association (IPLA)
• International Law Society (ILS)
• Irish Law Students Association
• Italian American Law Students Association (IALSA)
• Jewish Law Students Association (JLSA)
• Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA)
• Law and Education Resource Network (LERN)
• Law Students for Veterans' Rights
• Legal Association for Women (LAW)
• Muslim Law Student Association (MLSA)
• National Lawyers Guild (NLG)
• OutLaws
• Philosophy & Linguistics Society (PLS)
• Student Service Trip Association
• South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA)
• Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF)
• Student Bar Association (SBA)
• Suspension Representation Project (SRP)
• Tax Law Association
• Unemployment Action Center (UAC)
• Yearbook Committee
• Yoga Club

[edit] Former Deans

• William P. Richardson, dean from 1901-1945.
• William B. Carswell, dean from 1945-1953.
• Jerome Prince, dean from 1953-1971.
• Raymond E. Lisle, dean from 1971-1977.
• I. Leo Glasser, dean from 1977-1981.
• David G. Trager, dean from 1983-1993.
• Joan G. Wexler, dean from 1994-2010.

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] Historically significant alumni

• Herman Badillo, Bronx, New York politician has been a borough president, United States Representative, and candidate for Mayor of New York City. The first Puerto Rican to be elected to these posts and to be a mayoral candidate in the U.S. (outside of Puerto Rico).
• Bruce Cutler and Gerald Shargel, criminal defense lawyers known for defending organized-crime figures including John Gotti
• David Dinkins, Mayor of New York City from 1990 through 1993, was the first African American to hold that office.
• Frieda B. Hennock ’24, first woman Federal Communications Commissioner.
• Irving "Swifty" Lazar, talent agent and deal-maker. Dubbed "swifty" by Humphrey Bogart when he put together three major deals for Bogart in a single day.Template:Films?
• Geraldo Rivera, host of the newsmagazine program Geraldo at Large, who appears regularly on Fox News Channel.
• Larry A. Silverstein, billionaire real estate investor and developer in New York City.
• Percy Sutton, civil rights activist, lawyer and entrepreneur.
• Hy Zaret, lyricist and composer best known as the co-author of the 1955 hit "Unchained Melody"
• Leonard Garment, '49, acting special counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon and 2005 National Medal of Arts recipient.Template:For?
• Mickey Marcus '34, Colonel in the U.S. Army, first General of the Israeli Army
• Mahsa Saeidi-Azcuy, contestant on The Apprentice, Season 10 and prosecutor

[edit] See also

• Category:Brooklyn Law School alumni

[edit] References

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[edit] External links

• Brooklaw.edu – Official website

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