BC Law Magazine Spring/Summer 2010 Boston College Law School
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Boston College Law School Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School Boston College Law School Magazine 4-1-2010 BC Law Magazine Spring/Summer 2010 Boston College Law School Follow this and additional works at: http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclsm Part of the Legal Education Commons Recommended Citation Boston College Law School, "BC Law Magazine Spring/Summer 2010" (2010). Boston College Law School Magazine. Book 36. http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclsm/36 This Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Boston College Law School Magazine by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Online at www.bc.edu/bclawmagazine THE $895M CASE | garvey farewell | THE POWER OF THE DEAD BOSTON COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINE | S p r ing / S u mme r 2 0 1 0 guns and incest an unlikely story of innocence lost BCBC LawNetLawNet make the connection Want a paperless way to stay connected? BC Law’s new alumni online community allows our graduates to connect www.bc.edu/lawnet like never before. But please, don’t take our word for it. Having trouble signing on? Contact [email protected] Register now and experience some of the exciting features for yourself ! Alumni Directory Career Resources My Profile Event Registration Class Notes Chapter Webpages Yellow Pages Try our new Facebook application! Learn more at www.bc.edu/lawnet ad2.indd 1 12/4/09 4:28:45 PM Contents SPRING / SUMMER 2010 VOLUME 18 | NUMBER 2 DEPARTMENTS 2 In Limine 3 Behind the Columns 4 In Brief 10 Legal Currents IT’S WHOM YOU KNOW Casting the social media net CAREER CONUNDRUM Public sector mustn’t shrink 18 27 Point of View JACOB SILBERBERG ’12 28 Commencement 29 Faculty FEATURES SCHOLAR’S FORUM Redefining disability PROFILE: Ray Madoff 14 Caught! BENCHMARKS Ramzi Abadou ’02 nabs a securities defrauder ACADEMIC VITAE and wins a record $895 million settlement By Chad Konecky 36 Esquire ALUMNI NEWS 18 Anatomy of a Reasoning CLASS NOTES & Writing Class 42 Generations Rigorous BC Law program makes a science Light the World of legal expression 50 By Jeri Zeder Campaign Report 55 Reunion Giving Report 24 Home Movie 60 In Closing Chico Colvard ’01 takes a cinematic journey into his family’s heart of darkness By Jane Whitehead 55 Cover: Based on Family Affair poster by Chico Colvard and Sauli Pillay JASON RAISH WWW.BC.EDU/LAWALUMNI 1 [ I N LIMINE] SPRING / SUMMER 2010 A Prismatic Place VOLUME 18 NUMBER 2 Dean John H. Garvey BC Law Lights the World in Many Ways Editor in Chief Vicki Sanders ([email protected]) oston College Law School is like an object with many facets. Turn it this way and you see a graduate’s achievement, a professor’s Art Director Bscholarly musings, a class that transforms how students think. Turn Annette Trivette it that way, and the impact this community has on the world is visible in books published, courtroom triumphs, even movies made. BC Law Contributing Editors Magazine catches the light given off by this prismatic, colorful display. Deborah J. Wakefield Estate and tax law professor Ray Madoff, for instance, has sparked Tiffany Wilding-White a national conversation about her new book, Immortality and the Law: The Rising Power of the American Dead, a rather provocative look at Contributing Writers how the yearning for immortality has shaped the law of death in this Cynthia Atoji country. The story on Page 30 explains how Madoff’s curiosity about the Chad Konecky subject led her into bizarre byways of US history, business, and law. From Michael O’Donnell ’04 the familiar ground of trusts and disinheritance, she moved to the grey Ali Russell ’11 regions where law, science, and ethics intersect, including organ donation Jane Whitehead by executed convicts, posthumous conception, and cryogenics. “We are Jeri Zeder more anti-death than any other place in the world,” Madoff says. She sees this bias in the national psyche as underlying resistance to reform of Photographers the federal estate tax (popularly denounced as “the death tax,”) and the Suzi Camarata proliferation of “dynasty trusts” that allow the transfer of untaxed wealth Frank Curran down generations in perpetuity. Charles Gauthier Immortality comes in many guises, and Ramzi Abadou ’02 may Jacob Silberberg ’12 well have won a spot in the pantheon for his role in helping to Dana Smith win a record $895 million settlement for securities fraud from the nation’s largest health insurer. The case also resulted in the largest Design & Printing cash recovery from an individual defendant in a securities class Imperial Company action lawsuit: $30 million from UnitedHealth’s CEO William Mc- TIFFANY WILDING-WHITE TIFFANY Guire. Read the story of what it took to bring down this giant com- Boston College Law School of pany in the latest installment in our Great Cases series on Page 14. Newton, Massachusetts 02459-1163, Chico Colvard ’01 pursued his passion for filmmkaing after law publishes BC Law Magazine two times a year: in January and June. BC Law school, turning his camera on the dark past of his own family. When his Magazine is printed by Imperial Company chilling story of violence and sexual abuse, Family Affair, premiered at in West Lebanon, NH. We welcome read- ers’ comments. Contact us by phone at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, it was acquired by the Oprah Winfrey 617-552-2873; by mail at Boston College Network (Page 24). Filmmaker he may be, but the lawyer in Colvard Law School, Barat House, 885 Centre Street, Newton, MA 02459-1163; or by played an important role in the film. “When I started this project, I didn’t email at [email protected]. Copyright © know I was making a documentary,” Colvard says. “It felt more like 2010, Boston College Law School. All I was lawyering with a camcorder: gathering eyewitness testimony, pre- publication rights reserved. Opinions expressed in BC Law paring evidence and arguments to present later at trial.” Family Affair Magazine do not necessarily reflect the is being shown at film festivals nationwide. views of Boston College Law School or From the Philippines (Page 27) to Capitol Hill (Page 32) to a Pough- Boston College. keepsie, New York, courtroom (Page 4), the rays of BC Law’s influence are visible. What a gem of a place. —Vicki Sanders Editor in Chief 2 BC LAW MAGAZINE | SPRING / SUMMER 2010 [ B EHIND THE COLUMNS] Garvey Leaves BC Law Decade of growth at Law School precedes move to presidency of Catholic University s this magazine was pre- He has presided over a steady paring to go to press, climb in alumni support and par- ADean John Garvey ticipation during the past decade. announced that he had accepted “Thank you to the scores of an offer to become the fifteenth alumni who have served on our president of Catholic University Board of Overseers, which has of America in Washington, DC. grown to more than sixty mem- “This was a very difficult deci- bers. They are people of profes- sion to make,” Garvey said. sional distinction whose service “I have loved my eleven years has led to great gains for the Law at Boston College, and I am School.” The board’s leadership so very thankful to have been helped build the foundation that able to lead one of the best law enabled BC Law to embark on schools in the nation.” its first capital campaign, now Garvey, who on July 1 in its fourth year and heading became the third lay president for a goal of $50 million by in Catholic University’s history, 2015. During Garvey’s tenure, is a past president of the Associ- BC Law has experienced an aver- ation of American Law Schools, age increase in total donor com- a nationally known constitu- mitments of 23 percent annually. tional law expert, and a scholar who has written “Thanks also to the alumni task force and everyone widely on Catholic issues. The appointment to Catho- who breathed new life into our Alumni Association,” lic University ties together the various threads of his Garvey said. Restructured in 2008, the Alumni Board has career. “I can think of no other job I would leave BC launched many initiatives nationwide, including efforts to for,” he said. “But I have been committed for much expand chapters and build volunteer and career network- of my life to advancing the cause of Catholic higher ing opportunities. More than 1,000 alumni are now part education, and there is no better place to do that than of the annual Alumni Assembly. Reunions are experienc- at the Catholic University of America.” ing unprecedented levels of participation. The Garvey years at BC Law School have been Garvey has also overseen the establishment of the distinguished by many accomplishments in the areas LLM program and of the Center for Human Rights, of faculty hiring, alumni engagement, fundraising, and both of which have brought distinction to BC Law. He program expansion. “While I have been here, Boston engaged the entire community in long-term planning College Law School has grown in many ways, and and goal-setting, which yielded the Law School’s first I have grown with it. I am proud of what we have comprehensive strategic plan. accomplished together,” he said. In keeping with BC Law’s Jesuit Catholic tradition, Garvey expressed gratitude to various members of Garvey has encouraged the Law School’s commitment the BC Law community. to public service, most visibly by growing the Loan “I want to thank our faculty, who during my time Repayment Assistance Program.