Welcome to another edition of See infra, delivering a sampling of news from St. John's Law. 

As St. John’s Law marks its 100th anniversary, Dean Jelani Jefferson Exum is pleased to announce that John P. “Jack” Clarke ’55CBA, ’57L, ’24HON, an esteemed Law School alumnus who, as a pillar of the University community, has taught, mentored, championed, and inspired generations of students, will address the graduates at the Law School’s Commencement on Sunday, May 17, 2026.

“Jack Clarke embodies the excellence, prominence, and impact that have defined St. John’s Law for a century,” Dean Jefferson Exum says. “His leadership, mentorship, and philanthropy—particularly in support of public interest work and student opportunity—reflect a lifelong commitment to advancing the Law School’s mission. Honoring him as our commencement speaker in our centennial year is a fitting tribute to a life of remarkable dedication and service and a powerful affirmation of the Law School’s legacy and future.”

Read the full announcement.

Congratulations to DiMartino/Smith Public Interest Center Director Jeanne Ortiz-Ortiz on being named to City & State’s Trailblazers in Law list for 2026. Ortiz-Ortiz leads by example at the Center and, in the wider community, as Chair of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Standing Committee on Disaster Response and Preparedness. Her recent article, “At the Intersection of Property and Disaster Recovery: Inside the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Latest Reforms,” appears in the ABA’s Probate & Property magazine.

For a century, St. John’s Law has been a place where excellence is nurtured, prominence is achieved, and impact is made—not only in New York, but across the country and around the world.

On Thursday, June 18, 2026, the Law School community will come together to celebrate that enduring legacy at our 100th Anniversary Gala at Casa Cipriani in Lower Manhattan. Please save the date for this culminating event of our year-long 100th Anniversary Celebration.

You’ll receive your Gala invitation soon. In the meantime, to learn more about this special event and RSVP to attend, please visit the Gala website. If you have any questions, email us at stjohnslaw100@stjohns.edu.

We’re so grateful for all the St. John’s Law alumni who made donations and bid high and often to support this year’s Public Interest Auction. Themed Public Interest Through the Decades! the event was a milestone celebration of the Law School’s 100th anniversary, the Auction’s 30th anniversary, and the newly renamed DiMartino/Smith Public Interest Center’s 15th anniversary. Our community turned out to make this fundraiser for public interest programs and initiatives at St. John’s Law a big success. Thank you!

This month, the Mattone Family Institute for Real Estate Law continues its Real Estate Alumni Spotlight series with Kayla Laskin ‘19, who’s an associate at Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP. Our Center for Bankruptcy Studies puts its March spotlight on Sidley Austin LLP Partner Thomas Califano’83C, ’88L.

Professor Renee Nicole Allen was invited to talk about her forthcoming Boston University Law Review article, “Hell Hath No Fury Like a White Man Scorned,” at the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) Women in Legal Education Conference.

Professor Adrián Alvarez presented a forthcoming article that seeks to understand how increased immigration enforcement affects access to special education services in those communities.

At the AALS Contracts Section’s annual meeting, Professor Miriam A. Cherry presented her paper, “Abuse of Contract: A New Cause of Action,” which is forthcoming in the William and Mary Law Review. Professor Cherry is a past chair of the AALS Contracts Section.

Professor Evelyn Malavé’s article, “The Mass Treatment Paradigm,” will be published in the Northwester Law School’s Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. The article explores how the concept of “treatment” is increasingly deployed to justify the expansion of a supposedly softer and gentler carceral state. 

Professor Eva Subotnik presented her co-authored paper, “Roll the Credits?: Why Attribution Works Differently in Sculpture and Film,” at Boston University School of Law’ the 2026 Works-in-Progress Intellectual Property (WIPIP) Colloquium. The paper will appear in a special thematic issue of the Sculpture Journal. 

The Veterans Breakfast Club welcomed Professor John Q. Barrett as its guest speaker for an online program about the 1945-1946 Nuremberg trial of principal Nazi war criminals. Professor Barrett gave a lecture on The Nuremberg Trials—80 Years Ago, Today, & Tomorrow at the International Seminar for Holocaust Museum and Memorial Educators at Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust remembrance center, in Jerusalem, Israel.

Professor Eva Subotnik participated in a Harvard Law School roundtable on Copyright’s Afterlife: Law, Legacy, and Ownership.

As Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, Professor Christine Lazaro oversees academic programming at St. John’s Law. She also teaches a course on Leadership for Lawyers, which she designed, and is Co-Director of the Law School’s in-house Securities Arbitration Clinic. Those diverse roles give her a unique perspective on the hands-on learning that helps today’s law students build impactful and rewarding legal careers.  In the latest installment of our Law Matters story series, Vice Dean Lazaro talks with Dean Jelani Jefferson Exum about the importance of experiential learning in and beyond the classroom. Read the full Q&A.

On a recent Friday, more than 70 students gathered at St. John’s Law for the inaugural Public Interest Intensive, a one-day program coordinated by the DiMartino/Smith Public Interest Center to help them explore the foundations of public interest law. The program featured three panels: Sustaining Purpose in Immigration Law: Reflections on Practice and Advocacy; Grounded in Justice: Reflections from Public Defenders on Criminal Law and Reform; and Public Interest Pathways: Opportunities and Clinical Practice. Learn more about the Intensive.

The Frank S. Polestino Trial Advocacy Institute (PTAI) team of Alyssa Bern ’27, Katerina Denora ’26, Melanie Dolgonos ’26, Erica Marciante ’27, Elizabeth Sack ’26, and Sarah Wilkinson ’26, excelled to the semifinals of the Trials and Tribulations Mock Trial Competition hosted by the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law.

Competing for the St. John's Law Moot Court Honor Society, Oksana Holovka ’26 and Liam Gaffney ’27 advanced to the finals of the Notre Dame Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition.

Well done, all!

Comments, Suggestions, or Content Ideas?
Please email Lori Herz, See infra's Managing Editor and Lead Writer, at herzl@stjohns.edu.

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