BLSLawNotes THE MAGAZINE OF BROOKLYN LAW SCHOOL | SPRING 2013 BLS LawNotes SPRING 2013 Greetings from the New From Barclays Center to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Beyond, BLS Graduates Are Transforming Brooklyn BLSLawNotes CONTENTS Vol. 18, No. 1 Editor-in-Chief In Every Issue Linda S. Harvey Assistant Dean for External Affairs 3 Briefs Managing Editor Andrea Strong ’94 Professor Claire Kelly ’93 and Nelson Stephen Román ’89 Nominated for the Federal Bench; Sparkle Sooknanan ’10 to Contributors Clerk for Justice Sotomayor; On Board with Jeffrey Forchelli; Diana Barnes-Brown Law Student Entrepreneurs; Alumni Authors; Journal of Law Tina Herrera & Policy Cited Most by Courts; Fall Events Recap. Adam Ludemann ’14 Andrea Polci Debra Sapp ’04 16 Clinic Update Andrea Strong ’94 The Law School debuts three new clinics and a new LGBTQ pro bono project. ClassNotes Editor Caitlin Monck-Marcellino ’02 Director of Alumni Relations 18 Legal Lights Celebrating the achievements, fellowships, and awards of Photo Editor Matilda Garrido students and recent graduates. Graphic Design 44 Faculty Highlights Ron Hester Design & Photography Professor Richard Allan retires. Photographers Damion Edwards Professor Notes Matilda Garrido Bill Araiza and Nelson Tebbe on Stage at the Public Theater; Patrice Gilbert Christopher Beauchamp on the Patenting of Genetic Material; Marty Heitner Anita Bernstein Organizes “Restatement of...” Symposium; Ron Hester Bennett Capers Elected to the ALI; Cynthia Godsoe Joins Tenure- Joe Vericker Track Faculty; Susan Herman Awarded Civil Liberties Book Prize; Printer Adam Kolber on Proportional Punishment; Minor Myers Wins Allied Printing Federalist Society Young Legal Scholars Paper Competition. BLS LawNotes is published 54 Alumni Update semi-annually by Brooklyn Law School for alumni, Annual Alumni Luncheon Honors Stanley Grossman ’67, students, faculty, and friends. Lawrence Sucharow ’75, and Judge Ramon Reyes ’92; BLS Goes to Washington; Wine Tasting for Lawyers; In Conversation Events; Letters and Comments Extraordinary Gifts from Sam Bernsen ’49, Stanley Grossman ’67, We welcome letters and comments and Lawrence Sucharow ’75. about articles in BLS LawNotes from our graduates and friends. We will Class Notes consider reprinting brief submissions in LawNotes and on our website. Alumni Profiles Gary Kesner ’78: Bringing the Silver Screen to Silvercup Mailing address: Managing Editor Harris Diamond ’83: Communicating in 140 Characters or More BLS LawNotes Claudia Werman Connor ’88: A Voice for the Voiceless 250 Joralemon Street Brooklyn, New York 11201 70 In Memoriam Fax: 718-625-5242 Remembering Phyllis Mehler-Seavy ’52, Stanley Snadowsky ’67, e-Mail: [email protected] and Drayton Grant ’75. Web: www.brooklaw.edu 72 Closing Arguments In this new column, Professor Miriam Baer takes on the Additonal photo credits position advanced by Professors Borden and Reiss in their on the cover: feature article “Cleaning Up the Financial Crisis.” Baer argues Brooklyn Bridge Park, Elizabeth Felicella that criminal prosecutions may not be the right remedy to Shake Shack, Peter Mauss the 2008 financial crisis. Features 20 Greetings from the New Brooklyn By Andrea Strong ’94 If you haven’t been to Brooklyn lately, what are you waiting for? Brooklyn is the new black. It is a hub for technology, a center of DIY fortitude, a haven for culinary talent, a mecca for fashion designers, a breeding ground for start-ups, and an oasis for all manner of innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs. In this feature, we introduce the BLS graduates and students who have played an integral part in fueling the borough’s impressive development. They have had a hand in redeveloping the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard, bringing the 18,000-seat Barclays Center to Flatbush Avenue, sustaining successful start-ups like Tough Mudder and MakerBot, and counseling tech incubators and community leaders. 32 Cleaning up the Financial Crisis: Prosecutorial Discretion or Prosecutorial Abdication? 36 By Professors Bradley T. Borden and David J. Reiss The Magnificent 7 Like “Inside Job,” the Academy Award-winning documentary about By Andrea Strong ’94 the origins of the 2008 financial crisis, this thought-provoking article by BLS Professors Bradley Borden and David Reiss tells the story of In this feature, we introduce the a crime without punishment. Borden and Reiss explore the wrongdo- seven BLS alumnae selected for ing that caused the 2008 financial crisis and examine why it is that Super Lawyers’ “Top 50 Women” prosecutors have been reluctant to bring charges against individ- list: Harriet Newman Cohen ’74, uals who originated bad loans, pooled bad mortgages, and sold Barbara Kaplan ’75, Jane Stevens ’77, bad mortgage-backed securities. “Without criminal liability,” they BLS Board of Trustees member conclude, “we risk a repeat of the type of conduct that brought us Eileen Nugent ’78, Lynne Fischman to the edge of financial ruin.” Uniman ’79, Ellen Makofsky ’85, and Colleen Caden ’99. Their peer-recognized success represents the best of Brooklyn Law School. THE DEAN’S MESSAGE Brooklyn is the place to be, and our Law School is right at the center of all the excitement. The borough of immigrants and churches is suddenly a global brand, with everything from baby clothes to beer bearing its name. Parisians use the phrase ‘très Brooklyn’ to convey chic cool. And San Francisco’s resurgent Mission District and Washington D.C.’s hot “U” Street corridor are known as their respective city’s “Brooklyn.” The energy, growth, and vitality of our community is staggering: culinary hot spots; film and television studios; startling high- tech innovations; world-class performing arts, sports, museums, and libraries; bold new architecture; a reborn people-friendly waterfront; and over 19,000 new businesses in 2011 alone, according to Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, as well as more college and grad students than in the city up North along the Charles River. Increasingly, the Law School is a partner to all this success and change, whether opening our doors to countless civic groups; running clinics that are in effect the law firms for people and new businesses throughout the borough; or bringing government and academic leaders to Brooklyn to consider issues ranging from emergency disaster response and community development to the link between immigration reform and entrepreneurship. Brooklyn has always been known for its famous native sons and daughters, from Jimmy Durante to Mel Brooks, from W.H. Auden to Norman Mailer to Arthur Miller, from George Gershwin to Lena Horne to Barbara Streisand, from Shirley Chisholm to Elizabeth Holtzman to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, from Sandy Koufax to Vince Lombardi to Michael Jordan, and from Isaac Asimov to Carl Sagan and a galaxy of other stars—not to mention so many of our relatives and friends—that it often seems as if everyone is from Brooklyn. Today, increasingly, it is also a destination of choice, and it’s a great place to go to law school. BLS embodies the innovative culture of the New Brooklyn. In this issue of LawNotes, our cover feature highlights both the symbiotic relationship between the borough and the Law School and celebrates our tradition of being identified with leaders who are agents of change. For example, intertwined with the borough’s meteoric rise is the work of Professor Jonathan Askin’s Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy Clinic, and Professor David Reiss’s Community Development Clinic, both engines for Brooklyn’s long-term progress. The cover feature also highlights the central role of our graduates— like Forest City Ratner’s Linda Chiarelli ’88, Tough Mudder’s Kate Wellington Fitzpatrick ’09, and MakerBot’s Richard McCarthy ’99—in making Brooklyn an entrepreneurial mecca. We also spotlight “The Magnificent Seven”—powerful peer-recognized alumnae who appeared on Super Lawyers’ list of “Top 50 Women Lawyers” and who epitomize our legacy of accomplishment and inclusion. Coincidence? Not likely. It’s what you expect from a law school where one of the first women law deans in the country, Joan Wexler, elevated BLS’s national reputation; where Professor Roberta Karmel writes about 50 years of SEC rulings from the perspective of the first woman Commissioner of that agency and the first female chair of PLI; and where Professor Susan Herman heads the ACLU and wins a major award for her most recent book. This magazine is filled with success stories. It’s because our faculty, students, and alumni bring a depth of dedication and talent, often with transformative results. The attributes described in our profile of Sam Bernsen ’49—ambition, hard work, foresight—will be familiar to any BLS graduate. Brooklyn Law School helped anchor Downtown Brooklyn and its legal community for more than a century. Now it is propelling it forward. Our best days are before us, and if you’ve not visited your old stomping grounds in the last few years, I invite you to come back and be amazed. Nick Allard Joseph Crea Dean and Professor of Law 2 • BLSLawNotes | Spring 2013 BRIEFS Senate Confirmation Hearings Held for Nelson Stephen Román ’89 and Professor Claire R. Kelly ’93 Five federal judicial nominees appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 23. Of the five nominees, two were members of the Brooklyn Law School community: Nelson S. Román ’89, who was nominated by President Barack Obama to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and Professor Claire R. Kelly ’93, who was nominated by President Obama to the Court of International Trade. “We are extraordinarily proud to have two of our graduates as judicial nominees before the Senate Judiciary Committee,” said Dean Nick Allard. Other nominees included Analisa Torres for the Southern District of New York; Raymond Moore for the District of Colorado; and Derrick Watson for the District of Hawaii. Román, a judge on the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First “ We are extraordinarily proud to have two Department since 2009, has presided over approximately 400 trials.