The Future Looks Bright
We’re thrilled to share that Jelani Jefferson Exum will be the next dean of St. John’s Law. She will be the second woman and first African American to lead the Law School when she assumes the deanship and a named professorship on June 1, 2024. Currently dean of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, Dean Jefferson Exum also serves as the school’s Philip J. McElroy Professor of Law. Throughout her career, she has advanced the Vincentian values that define St. John’s Law: access, opportunity, and excellence. Her deep understanding of our mission of serving the greater good and fostering a diverse and inclusive legal profession, coupled with her extensive experience in legal education, perfectly positions her to carry that mission forward. Read more about incoming Dean Jefferson Exum. 

Announcing Our 2024 Commencement Speaker  
As they celebrate a rite of passage on Monday, May 20, 2024, St. John’s Law J.D. and LL.M. graduates will hear from Hon. Rowan Wilson, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals and the State of New York, who will be the Law School’s commencement speaker and honoree. The event is live streamed, so mark your calendars and watch for more information. In the meantime, this story about Judge Wilson shares highlights from his distinguished legal career.

A Very Special Celebration
Last month, hundreds of alumni came together to celebrate alma mater at the annual Alumni Association Luncheon.  In addition to recognizing this year’s Belson medalists—Andrea M. Alonso ‘81, Bernard London ‘77, Denise Melillo Mattone ‘90 and Michael X. Mattone ‘91, Troy Rosasco ‘89, Carmine Rubino and Lynda Rubino (parents), and Marea Suozzi ‘80—for their generous support of St. John’s Law, attendees gave a standing ovation to Dean Michael A. Simons as he received the Law School's St. Thomas More award in recognition of his 15 years of outstanding moral leadership. View the event photo gallery.

Alumni Association Launches Its OUTLaws & Allies Chapter!
Last week, members of our OUTLaws & Allies student group came together with alumni at Skadden, where they enjoyed a wonderful evening of mixing and mingling hosted by partner Brian V. Breheny ‘90C, ‘96L. As a highlight of the event, Brian announced the launch of the St. John's Law Alumni Association OUTLaws & Allies Chapter. If you’re a St. John’s Law graduate, you’re automatically a member of the Law School Alumni Association. To get involved in the OUTLaws & Allies Chapter, please contact Brian Woods at brian.woods@stjohns.edu. To learn more about the OUTLaws & Allies student group, visit our LGBTQ+ web page. 

For the Greater Good
As 2023 came to a close and winter set in, 92,824 people, including 33,365 children, were sleeping in New York City’s main municipal shelter system each night. Almost at historical highs, those numbers evince a crisis that Meltzer Lippe partner Laura M. Brancato '03 is working to address as a member of the New York State Bar Association Task Force on Homelessness and the Law. Read more about Laura's efforts to protect New York's most vulnerable. 

In Print
Congratulations to Michael Fraser ‘24, whose article, “Taking a Closer Look: Assessing Biometric Authentication,” was published in the news section of the New York State Bar Association website. The article is based on a paper Michael wrote as a student in Professor Robin Boyle’s Scholarly Research and Writing class. 

Professor Renee Nicole Allen participated in a panel discussion about promoting scholarship as part of the LatCrit faculty development workshop. She also delivered a keynote address at the National Black Pre-Law Conference and Law Fair. Her published article, “Get Out: Structural Racism and Academic Terror,” was featured at Racism.org. 

Professor Robin Boyle’s co-authored essay, “The Beauty of Shorts: Ten Tips on Writing a Publishable Short Piece,” appears in Proceedings: An Online Journal of Legal Writing Conference Presentations. 

In this Bloomberg story, Professor Miriam Cherry, Faculty Director of our Center for Labor and Employment Law, offers insights on the U.S. Department of Labor's new final rule that will make it harder for companies in the gig economy to classify their workers as independent contractors. Professor Cherry also spoke at a U.N. International Labor Office training seminar titled Knowledge Sharing on Digital Labour Platform Policies and Case Law. 

The Los Angeles Times tapped Professor Elaine Chiu's criminal law expertise for this story on the split verdict in actor Jonathan Majors' (intentional and reckless) assault case.  

In her dissenting opinion in Barlow v. Washington, Washington Supreme Court Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis cited Professor Phil Lee’s article, " The Curious Life of In Loco Parentis at American Universities," in support of her argument that a university’s tort liability should be based on something other than land possessor duties because university students are more than just business invitees of their institutions. 

In the latest episode of his Legal Spirits podcast, Professor and Mattone Center for Law and Religion Director Mark Movsesian and co-host Marc DeGirolami discuss a pending New York State bill that would require future fast-food restaurants at state thruway rest stops to open seven days a week. The bill reportedly targets Chick-fil-A, which closes on Sundays in line with the owners’ religious commitments. Professor Movsesian wrote an opinion piece on the same topic for The Volokh Conspiracy blog.

Professor Rosemary Salomone's latest book, The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language (Oxford University Press) is out in paperback, with an updated preface. A winner of the prestigious 2023 Pavese Prize in Non-Fiction, the book has earned high praise from the New York Times, Kirkus Reviews, the Economist, and others. Professor Salomone was also quoted in an Education Week article titled “In 1974, the Supreme Court Recognized English Learners’ Rights. The Story Behind That Case.”

Professor Jeremy Sheff presented his work in progress, “A Heap of IP: Vagueness in the Delineation of Intellectual Property Rights,” at the Works-in-Progress in Intellectual Property Conference at Santa Clara University School of Law. He presented another paper, “Dividing Trademark Use,” at NYU’s 2024 Tri-State Region IP Workshop.

Professor Eva Subotnik presented her co-authored paper, “Copyright’s Capacity Gap” (forthcoming U.C. Davis Law Review), at a meeting of the Nassau County Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Law Committee. She also presented her co-authored paper, “What the Warhol Court Got Wrong: Use as an Artist Reference and the Derivative Work Doctrine (forthcoming Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts),” at NYU’s 2024 Tri-State Region IP Workshop. 

Professor G. Ray Warner has been appointed to the World Bank Insolvency and Climate Change Working Group, which will explore the linkages between insolvency and climate change and the potential role of insolvency and restructuring frameworks in addressing climate-related risks. He presented lectures on U.S. Chapter 11 and on the UNCITRAL Model Laws relating to insolvency for the INSOL Global Insolvency Practice Course in London. 

Story Spotlight
A few months ago, Mary C. Johnson '24 traveled to Ethiopia to spend a week mentoring amputee children. The trip was sponsored by the Limb Kind Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit that aims to improve the lives of children with limb loss by strengthening the worldwide amputee community and providing prosthetic care to all. The organization’s mission resonates for Mary, who is an amputee. Read the full story. 

Kudos!
Congratulations to Seth Goldstein '24 on winning not one, but two New York State Bar Association Labor & Employment Law Section awards! His paper, “Rigid Rideshares and Driver Monitoring,” earned second place in the Section’s Dr. Emanuel Stein Memorial Writing Competition. He’s also co-winner of the Samuel M. Kaynard Memorial Student Service Award, which recognizes scholarship and exemplary service in the field of labor and employment law. 

Let's hear it for the PTAI team of Justin Fuller '25, Kylie Mulholland '24, and Emily Ruchalski '24, who bested a competitive field at regionals to advance to the nationals of the Texas Young Lawyers Association's National Trial Competition. The team was coached by Mark S. Luccarelli '18 and Michael Maffei ‘10.

There's even more to celebrate! At the 2024 Thurgood Marshall Moot Court Competition, Faith Banjoko '24 and Isaiah Williams '25 advanced to the quarterfinals and won the award for the Best Respondent Brief. Supporting the team as coach was Shania Vincent '24.

Field Notes
Recently, the Department of Labor (DOL) promulgated a new rule governing employee/independent contractor status for the Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs minimum wage and overtime pay. In its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the DOL recognized and discussed a submission from the Law School’s student-run Labor Relations and Employment Society, which called attention to the problems of unpaid internships. Professors Miriam Cherry and David Marshall, who head our Center for Labor and Employment Law, advised the students on the submission. 

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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