Professor Jack Greenberg was assistant counsel and then director-counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 1949 to 1984. He has argued 40 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education, in 1954, which declared racial segregation unconstitutional. He joined the Law School faculty in 1984 and teaches constitutional, civil, and human rights law, as well as civil procedure. In 2001 he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton for his enduring work in defense of civil rights.
Theodore (Ted) Shaw '79 is Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the nation's oldest legal organization fighting for equal rights under the law. He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School. A lifelong fighter against racial injustice, he litigated school desegregation and housing discrimination cases under the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and led delegations of Legal Defense Fund lawyers to South Africa in the mid-1990s to teach constitutional litigation to black lawyers.
Lisa Alexander '02 "I had worked at public interest organizations before Columbia and knew of Jack Greenberg's history in civil rights work. That he was on the faculty was a motivating factor in my choosing Columbia Law School. When I made my decision—against financial odds—it was Ted Shaw's example that made me want to continue my commitment to civil rights. Although I knew Ted before, I had the opportunity to work more closely with him as a Human Rights Intern at the NAACP LDF. He's a great example of how a passionate life can be lived in the law. When he sees students who seriously want to put their commitment into action, he really supports them."
Lisa Alexander was an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and is now a law professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School with a focus on urban community development.
Adam Weinstein '95 is the former project director of the West Side SRO, an organization that assists low-income people at risk of eviction from their Upper West Side rooming houses and residential hotels primarily by landlords seeking higher rents. He also was one of the expert lawyers who supervise students in Columbia's Tenants' Rights Pro Bono Project. Under a Columbia University fellowship, the Columbia/Goddard Riverside Tenant Assistance Project, created by Columbia University and based at Mr. Weinstein's organization, he also directed a junior lawyer and law students who represent tenants facing eviction from their apartments because of gentrification in Columbia's own backyard.
Rodrigo Sanchez-Camus '02 "During law school, I volunteered with the Tenants' Rights Project, a student-run group that directly represents tenants who are being evicted. I knew I was going to do public interest law, but working on tenants' rights made me want to work in housing when I graduated because I realized that there isn't sufficient representation. Since I graduated, I've been working at the Urban Justice Center's Mental Health Project, where I represent people with serious psychiatric disabilities who are facing eviction. My work with Adam Weinstein prepared me to be the best advocate for people in these situations, but also taught me, above all, to respect and communicate with my clients and try to alleviate what is a terribly stressful situation."
Rodrigo Sanchez-Camus was the 2002 Kirkland & Ellis New York City Fellow and now is a staff attorney at the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation.
Professors Jeffrey Fagan (left) of the Law School and Jim Liebman (right) of the Law School and the School of Public Health took an interdisciplinary approach in their "Broken System" project, which generated two groundbreaking studies on the U.S. capital punishment system. The studies found serious reversible error in nearly 7 out of 10 capital cases over the period examined and attributed high error rates to certain states' and counties' overuse of the death penalty in marginal cases. Called "the most far-reaching study of the death penalty in the United States" by The New York Times, this scholarly work provides very specific, detailed information that has had an important impact on the national capital-punishment debate. Their work—which was largely aided by student assistants—forms the basis for lively discussions and case studies.
Archana Prakash '02 "Spending a summer in Alabama at the Equal Justice Initiative, a death-penalty center, I got more interested in the field than I thought I ever would be. The press reports came out on Liebman and Fagan's study, and I wanted to work on it. Working on the study has really changed my career goals. I thought I wanted to do civil rights work. Now I want to do criminal defense work. We have this system that we think works well. But the system breaks down in a lot of cases, and it's important that smart, able people who really care about the system get involved in all aspects of the system---from the day-to-day criminal attorneys to attorneys using civil litigation to do reform work."
Archana Prakash was named the 2003 Cochran, Neufeld & Scheck Civil Rights Fellow, and is now a public defender at The Bronx Defenders.
Professor Jane M. Spinak is the Edward Ross Aranow Clinical Professor of Law at Columbia University Law School. A member of the Columbia faculty since 1982, she co-founded the Child Advocacy Clinic. During the mid-1990s, Professor Spinak served as attorney-in-charge of the Juvenile Rights Division of The Legal Aid Society of New York. She is chair of the Board of the Center for Family Representation, a new public interest legal organization created to improve the representation of parents in Family Court proceedings. Professor Spinak has worked extensively in Eastern and Central Europe to support the creation of clinical programs there, including the first child advocacy clinics in the region.
Alex Karam '04 "I came to law school with an interest in how families, and especially Latino families, were affected by laws. Then, an internship representing battered women in court made me see how the interests of the child are closely tied to the mother, and I wanted to learn more about the child-welfare system. I had heard the the Child Advocacy Clinic was an intense experience, but I've always learned best through experience, and that's something that Jane really promotes. I put a lot of time into the cases I was working on, and even when I thoughts I was doing everything for my client, Jane would ask, 'But what else can you do?' 'What other alternatives does the law offer?' 'What other means of advocacy could you pursue?' She is probably one of the few people in the city who is so qualified to teach this course."
Alex Karam works for Sanctuary for Families Center for Battered Women's Legal Services, where he staffs the Child Protection Projects.
Professor Susan Sturm, the George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social Responsibility and a critic and scholar of the changing workplace, has turned her concerns about the abuse of power into groundbreaking work on discrimination in employment and multiracial problem-solving. She has published on labor and civil rights, and has developed new approaches for employers, advocates, workers, and regulators to remedy structural discrimination. She is currently teaching and writing about innovative approahces to workplace equity, focusing on gender and racial equality initatives in universities, the local implementation of human rights princicples in New York City, and methods of linking individual conflict resolution to systemic porblem-solving.
Brandon Garrett '01 "In the course of Professor Sturm's seminar on policing, she found out I was a painter. In training police officers, she has them make a mural, so she asked me to join in. First the policing students would talk to people in the community about their encounters with police, and then they'd illustrate those encounters. It encouraged them to talk to people they wouldn't ordinarily talk to and think about the role race plays. Professor Sturm believes that you can change institutions by working with them rather than just suing them. She has always pushed me to think more creatively about legal problems, to go beyond being a traditional lawyer. And the mural looked really good; it had an opening at a local gallery!"
Brandon Garrett completed a two-year civil rights fellowship and is now a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Harvey J. Goldschmid '65, the Dwight Professor of Law, served as general counsel for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from July 1998 to January 2000 and as a special senior advisor to Chairman Arthur Levitt during 2001. While at the SEC, he drafted a powerful regulation that affects all investors, prohibiting selective disclosure of important information. Professor Goldschmid received the Willis L. M. Reese Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1996 and 1997. He teaches Antitrust and Trade Regulation; Corporations; and seminars on nonprofit institutions, international comparative antitrust law, and the modern corporation. His book Cases and Materials on Trade Regulation (with Robert Pitofsky '54 and Diane Wood) is the leading text in the antitrust field.
Meridith Mitchell '87 "Harvey Goldschmid is an outstanding lawyer with a mind for broader policy issues. In retrospect, the seminar I took with him—Corporations in Modern Society—dealt directly with issues I would work on later with him at the SEC. In class, we looked at the role of corporations vis-à-vis their shareholders and society as a whole. At the SEC, we applied that thinking to a major project to improve investors' awareness of audit committees and to our work on corporate governance matters more generally. I have especially learned from Harvey's negotiations. He has a deep appreciation for divergent points of view, and when others say that compromise is impossible, he'll go back into the room and find a compromise."
Meridith Mitchell is the principal associate general counsel, the third highest ranking staff member in the General Counsel's Office of the Securities Exchange Commission.
Professor Mark Barenberg, an activist and scholar of labor law, joined the Columbia faculty in 1987. Since then he has encouraged students to think critically about the intersection of civil rights and economic democracy with regard to the global labor market. As the chair of the national anti-sweatshop organization and a consultant on national and international issues such as living wages, Professor Barenberg brings up-to-the-minute activism to bear on classroom learning.
Liz Vladeck '06 "I came to Columbia Law School in part because I knew Mark Barenberg was here. I am now doing an independent study with him on the regulation of workplaces and labor markets from the local to global levels. He frames his teaching with what I consider to be crucial questions, about where power lies, how it is exercised, and what that means for the parties involved. He is breaking new ground on very difficult questions by doing practical work that is genuinelt rooted in concrete issues on the ground. There is absolutely no question that working with him is a singular and defining aspect of my law school experience."
Liz Vladeck is the David W. Leebron Fellow at the Human Rights Center in Kalingrad, Russia.
A leading theorist and author on human rights law, Professor Peter Rosenblum joined the Columbia faculty in the fall of 2003. He has worked for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights as well as for Human Rights Watch, the International Human Rights Law Group, and the United Nations. With a lifelong interest in the Democratic Republic of Congo's long struggles, he also has extensive experience in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere in Africa, where he continues to pursue projects in advocacy and research.
Christopher Albin-Lackey '04 "In the Human Rights Clinic, I found a space with the Law School to delve into the things I'm most passionate about, to be with people who shared my ideas, and to focus my education in the way I wanted it to go. Peter Rosenblum puts a lot of time into the class beyond teaching, and his door is always open. Stemming from his relationship with Human Rights Watch, we took research that the organization had done on Congo, to see whether the legal foundations for an International Criminal Court prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity were met. HRW presented our work to the chief prosecutor of the court, and he decided that there was enough basis to initiate an investigation. The lawyers said our research played a significant role in persuading him to go forward."
Christopher Albin-Lackey is a researcher in the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.
Gerard E. Lynch '75, the Paul J. Kellner Professor of Law at Columbia, was confirmed as United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York in the spring of 2000. A Columbia faculty member since 1977, Professor Lynch prosecuted white-collar criminal cases as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District from 1980 to 1983 and also served as the Chief of the Criminal Division in that office from 1990 to 1991. A highly experienced defense attorney, he has been appointed counsel to numerous commissions and special prosecutors investigating public corruption, including the Iran-Contra investigation, where he briefed and argued the prosecution position in the appeal of Oliver North. He won awards for outstanding teaching in both 1994 and 1997 and continues to teach at the Law School.
Elana Artson '86 "In my third year of law school, Gerard Lynch and Jim Liebman taught a class on trial advocacy that included a semester-long criminal trial. The class was divided into two teams and spent the semester preparing a federal case. We took depositions, put witnesses on the stand, and held a daylong trial. We not only learned about trial strategy but about ethics. Knowing that I would be very resistant to it, Jerry put me on the prosecution team. It was an absolutely wonderful experience. Jerry was very encouraging and always available. He loves mentoring students—seeing their "aha!" moments. I am now an assistant U.S. attorney in California. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be a prosecutor, and here I am as a result of the class."
As a Columbia Law student interning at the domestic violence organization Sanctuary for Families, Jennifer Friedman '98 was struck by the fact that women's petitions for orders of protection were often poorly drafted, and many women were ill-prepared to present their cases to a judge. Because the process was so complex, half of the women who sought such orders abandoned the process before a final order of protection was given. Ms. Friedman saw a role for law students in the need to improve advocacy for people undertaking this process. Together with Columbia Adjunct Professor Dorchen Leidholdt and a sympathetic judge, Ms. Friedman spearheaded the Courtroom Advocates Project (CAP), of which she is now executive director. Today the greatly expanded, federally funded program trains students from ten New York City law schools to advocate for battered women throughout the legal system. Some 4,000 students have been trained, and about the same number of women have been assisted by students.
Laura Laux Higgins '01 "I met Jennifer Friedman during the first week of law school and saw a real opportunity to get involved with an organization that people were passionate about and to put the legal skills I was learning to work right away. As my legal experience has grown, there have been even more opportunities to work with CAP, and I'm continuing to take on cases referred by the organization. My law firm not only allows me to do pro bono work but is truly committed to making the time for me to represent people facing desperate times. And I still benefit from the guidanec and knowledge of the top-notch staff attorneys at Sanctuary for Families. I have had an amazing opportunity to be mentored by them for many years."
Laura Laux Higgins is an associate at Fulbright & Jawarski and served on a board of legal associates that supports Sanctuary for Families' legal department.
Professor Edward Lloyd, the Evan M. Frankel Clinical Professor in Environmental Law, has played a prominent role in protecting New Jersey's environment for 30 years. He is the former executive director of the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group and has served since 1983 as its general counsel. He is also the founder and co-director of the Eastern Environmental Law Center, is a member of the Litigation Review Committee of Environmental Defense, and serves on the New Jersey Pinelands Commission. Professor Lloyd founded the environmental law clinics at both Columbia Law School and Rutgers School of Law.
Benjamin Longstreth '02 "In the Environmental Law Clinic I worked extensively on a project in which a developer had tried to put a mall into one of the largest contiguous wetlands in New Jersey's Meadowlands. It was an extraordinary project because of the amount of responsibility students had in terms of drafting comments on the environmental impact, looking at regulatory issues, and working with the groups we were representing. Now that I'm at the Department of Justice, the kind of research and analysis we did in the clinic is very relevant. Working with Ed Lloyd cemented my interest in doing environmental work. He is deeply engaged with the New York region's environment lawyers, and his passion for achieving environmental protection is clear and inspirational."
Benjamin Longstreth is a staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C.
Luisa Cabal LLM '98 is the Director of the International Legal Program of the Center for Reproductive Rights. She has pioneered the Center's first international litigation efforts, positioning reproductive rights issues on the agenda of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. She also designed and co-coordinated the first comparative regional study in Latin America on the jurisprudence of the region's highest level courts. She developed lawyer training projects, whose graduates continue to work on reproductive rights in countries such as Mexico, Peru, and Colombia. She has also worked on the creation of a network of Latin American law professors who are integrating reproductive rights into law school curricula in the region.
Elisa Slattery '04 "Working at the Center for Reproductive Rights complemented the nuts and bolts of my International Law class, especially in terms of how people use the various instruments of international law, such as U.N. bodies. I got to work on a range of regions and subject matters, including writing a shadow letter to the U.N. Human Rights Commission about the effects of abortion law, HIV/AIDS among women, and pregnancy discrimination in El Salvador. I worked on a project that explored sanctity-of-life provisions in human rights laws---an area in which the Center has been deeply involved. It's been very encouraging to see how people can come out of Columbia and make a career out of the kind of work she does."
Elisa Slattery was named a 2004 Third Millennium Foundation Human Rights Fellow to work on women's rights issues in partnership with the Federation of Women Lawyers, a Kenyan NGO, and the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York. She is now the Center's Legal Fellow for Africa.
Brandon Garrett '01 "In the course of Professor Sturm's seminar on policing, she found out I was a painter. In training police officers, she has them make a mural, so she asked me to join in. First the policing students would talk to people in the community about their encounters with police, and then they'd illustrate those encounters. It encouraged them to talk to people they wouldn't ordinarily talk to and think about the role race plays. Professor Sturm believes that you can change institutions by working with them rather than just suing them. She has always pushed me to think more creatively about legal problems, to go beyond being a traditional lawyer. And the mural looked really good; it had an opening at a local gallery!"
Harvey J. Goldschmid '65, the Dwight Professor of Law, served as general counsel for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from July 1998 to January 2000 and as a special senior advisor to Chairman Arthur Levitt during 2001. While at the SEC, he drafted a powerful regulation that affects all investors, prohibiting selective disclosure of important information. Professor Goldschmid received the Willis L. M. Reese Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1996 and 1997. He teaches Antitrust and Trade Regulation; Corporations; and seminars on nonprofit institutions, international comparative antitrust law, and the modern corporation. His book Cases and Materials on Trade Regulation (with Robert Pitofsky '54 and Diane Wood) is the leading text in the antitrust field.
Professor Edward Lloyd, the Evan M. Frankel Clinical Professor in Environmental Law, has played a prominent role in protecting New Jersey's environment for 30 years. He is the former executive director of the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group and has served since 1983 as its general counsel. He is also the founder and co-director of the Eastern Environmental Law Center, is a member of the Litigation Review Committee of Environmental Defense, and serves on the New Jersey Pinelands Commission. Professor Lloyd founded the environmental law clinics at both Columbia Law School and Rutgers School of Law. 