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

Please join us in recognizing our 2025 J.D. and LL.M. graduates who earned Commencement awards and honors. Read the list of recipients.

Earlier this summer, nearly 200 students from 11 area schools came together for the Catholic Middle School Mock Trial Program hosted by St. John’s Law and St. Brigid/Our Lady of Hope Regional School. Now in its 21st year, the Program offers participants a unique opportunity to conduct mock trials as prosecution and defense teams. Read more about the Program.

Thank you to all our alumni and friends who donated to the Bar Prep Meal Fund and helped us provide meals to the Class of 2025 as they studied for the July bar exam at St. John’s Law. Sustenance comes in many forms, and your generosity let our most recent graduates know that there’s a strong and proud Law School community behind them, rooting for their success on the bar exam and beyond. 

Hon. Debra Ann Livingston, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, announced the appointment of St. John's Law alumna Sheryl Giugliano ‘08L, ‘10LL.M. as a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of New York.

Please join us in congratulating St. John's Law alumni Lawrence Han '10 (President) and Christina Nguyen '16 (Vice President of Membership) on their election to leadership positions with the Korean American Lawyers Association of Greater New York (KALAGNY)

We’re delighted to share the news that Makousse B. Ilboudo ’16 has been appointed Executive Director of the newly established Mayor’s Office to Facilitate Pro Bono Legal Assistance, announced by Mayor Eric Adams.

Kudos also go to Varinder Singh ’14C, ’19L, ’20LL.M on being named a 2025 Blackshear Presidential Fellow by the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. Varinder is an associate in the Restructuring and Bankruptcy Department at Otterbourg P.C. He has served as a law clerk for three bankruptcy judges: Hon. John T. Gregg (Western District of Michigan); Hon. Jil Mazer-Marino '90 (Eastern District of New York); and Hon. Alan S. Trust (Chief Judge, Eastern District of New York).

You’re invited to a wonderful evening of mixing, mingling, and reminiscing with your St. John’s Law classmates and Dean Jelani Jefferson Exum:

Thursday, October 9, 2025 | New York Athletic Club
40th Reunion: Class of 1985 
35th Reunion: Class of 1990
30th Reunion: Class of 1995
25th Reunion: Class of 2000
20th Reunion: Class of 2005
15th Reunion: Class of 2010
10th Reunion: Class of 2015
5th Reunion: Class of 2020

Please register to attend by Monday, October 6, 2025. If you're unable to attend, you can still take part in the celebration when you give to the St. John’s Law Fund.

On Tuesday, October 14, 2025, come spend a day on the green to support student scholarships at St. John's Law at our 2025 Fall Alumni Golf Outing. We’ll drive, pitch, and putt at the scenic Nassau Country Club and gather to honor Eric Belfi ’95, Chairman and Head of Executive Committee at Labaton Keller Sucharow LLP. Please RSVP to attend and sponsor the Golf Outing today! 

We’re pleased to welcome three new full-time faculty members to St. John’s Law. They bring a range of experience and achievement as teachers and scholars, strengthening an already impactful faculty that’s helping to lead the Law School into its second century of excellence, prominence, and impact: 

Sandeep Singh Dhaliwal joins the faculty from NYU School of Law, where he was a Research Scholar and Director of the Business Transactions Clinic. Before entering academia, Professor Dhaliwal was an associate in the New York office of Debevoise & Plimpton. At St. John’s he will teach courses on race and the law, business associations, and law and political economy. His scholarship has been published in the Georgetown Law Journal and UC Davis Law Review, and his other writing has appeared in outlets including the Law & Political Economy Blog, Inquest, and The New York Times.

Darren Rosenblum comes to St. John’s Law from McGill University Faculty of Law. They previously taught at Pace University School of Law. Their scholarship focuses on corporate governance and on inclusion initiatives and remedies for sex inequality. Prior to teaching, Professor Rosenblum clerked in the U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico, after which they practiced international arbitration at Clifford Chance and at Skadden Arps. They wrote the first queer legal theory article, “Queer Intersectionality” (1994), and the first article on transgender prisoners, “Trapped in Sing Sing” (2000). They have presented work on corporate governance in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Eric W. Shannon joins on the full-time faculty as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Legal Writing after serving as the Law School’s Dean of Students for five years. Since 2019, he has taught doctrinal and skills-based courses for J.D. and LL.M. students. Professor Shannon was previously an associate at an international law firm, representing healthcare industry clients in federal litigation and internal investigations. He received his J.D. cum laude from NYU School of Law. He received his M.S.T. from Fordham University after graduating from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science degree, summa cum laude with distinction in research.

Professor Renee Nicole Allen helped to plan this year’s Association of American Law Schools Workshop for New Law Teachers, where she also served as a panelist, moderator, and small group facilitator.

 Professor Ashley B. Armstrong presented at the 10th Biennial Applied Legal Storytelling Conference co-sponsored by the University of Michigan Law School, Legal Writing Institute, and Clinical Legal Education Association. Her essay, “A Connoisseur of Experiences: Strategic Academic & Career Planning for JD Students,” appears in the Legal Writing Institute’s The Second Draft, discussing a method she developed to help law students strategically shape their J.D. careers.

The Robert H. Jackson Center in Jamestown, NY was the setting for Professor John Q. Barrett’s conversation with Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan Law School Professor from Practice who previously served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. They discussed The U.S. Department of Justice, Then & Now.

Professor Robin Boyle-Laisure’s co-authored workbook, Becoming a Legal Writer, is out now from Carolina Academic Press and her article, “Education Theory Integrated in Business Law,” has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of Legal Studies Education.

At the Annual NYU Conference on Labor & Employment Law, Professor Miriam Cherry participated in a panel discussion about recent executive orders and disparate impact litigation. At the 9th Regulating for Decent Work Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, she spoke about Hybrid Employment Status for Platform Workers and moderated a panel on platform work in India.

Returning for a guest spot on the Law on Film podcast, Professor Peggy McGuinness discussed Syriana, the 2005 geopolitical thriller loosely based on the memoir of a CIA case officer. The film tackles complex themes of transnational corruption, power, and terrorism, making it an apt subject for Professor McGuinness, who co-directs St. John’s Center for International and Comparative Law.

In this post at the Volokh Conspiracy blog, Professor and Mattone Center for Law and Religion Director Mark Movsesian discusses church-state decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court’s October 2024 Term. The latest installment of his Landmark Cases in Religious Freedom video series explores the enduring legacy of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the 1943 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established crucial precedents for both free speech and religious liberty. On the latest episode of his Legal Spirits podcast, Professor Movsesian speaks with University of San Diego School of Law Professor Steven Smith about a foundational principle of American law and politics: The Consent of the Governed.

Professor Rosemary Salomone was featured in a WalletHub story that brought invited experts in the education field together to share their thoughts on what factors make for the best and worst school systems.

Professor Eva Subotnik presented her co-authored paper, "Digital Replica Rights and Postmortem Policy Levers," at the 25th Annual Intellectual Property Scholars Conference hosted by DePaul College of Law in Chicago. 

“Supporting this year’s Fellows—the largest cohort in the Program’s history and one that’s 84% 1Ls—is not just a milestone in numbers, but a testament to the values we uphold at St. John’s Law,” Public Interest Center Director Jeanne Ortiz-Ortiz shares about our 2025 Summer Public Interest Fellowship Program. “We were again able to support all eligible students who applied and met program deadlines and requirements, distributing $673,100 in stipends.” The Fellows contributed 41,339 hours of pro bono work valued at $1.3 million in New York and nationwide. Learn more about this year’s Summer Public Interest Fellowship Program.

Every summer, St. John’s Law professors hire students as research assistants (RAs), forming collaborative partnerships that are mutually enriching. Students hone their research, writing, and analytical skills while learning how legal scholarship can shape doctrine, inform public policy, and engage broader societal issues. Faculty, in turn, approach their projects with intellectual rigor, professional discipline, and scholarly creativity—modeling those qualities for their students while gaining fresh perspectives and meaningful contributions in return. Read about two successful Summer 2025 RA collaborations.

Congratulations to Emilio Teta ‘26 on winning a 2025 American Immobiliare Commercial Real Estate Scholarship. This long-running scholarship program recognizes upcoming Italian American leaders in the commercial real estate industry. Emilio serves as Research Editor for the Law School’s N.Y. Real Property Law Journal.

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Please email Lori Herz, See infra's Managing Editor and Lead Writer, at herzl@stjohns.edu.

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