Dean's Welcome
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Welcome to our first electronic alumni newsletter. We will send you quarterly newsletters describing what's new at BU Law and highlighting the accomplishments of our students, alumni and faculty. We will continue to send you our alumni magazine, The Record, and regularly post information about BU Law and alumni on our Web site. We welcome your suggestions about what interests you and what you would like to see covered in all of our communication outlets.
We have had a busy and productive year so far and are looking forward to the spring semester. We hope you can attend some of our upcoming events. Our conferences and lectures offer stimulating topics and notable speakers. Our two most popular events are the annual Legal Follies show, produced by students, and the Public Interest Project auction, which allows our students to pursue public interest internships and jobs. Both events are a lot of fun and we would love to have you join us.
We hope you have a joyous holiday season and wish you a happy and healthy New Year.
Sincerely,
Maureen A. O’Rourke
BU Law Students Support Post-Hurricane Recovery Efforts In Gulf Coast
Spring Break Volunteer Initiative In New Orleans
Motivated by the compelling, undiminished need for legal assistance in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, 20 BU Law students have volunteered to spend their spring break doing pro bono work on-site in New Orleans. They will work with local nonprofits who are buried in requests for assistance. The legal issues are vast, including assisting evacuees with FEMA applications, property title issues, evictions, environmental claims, eminent domain, public benefits, employment and labor law violations, immigration, voting rights, criminal justice matters and levy breach class actions. The work will likely include fact-finding, interviewing, research and writing.
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| John Anderman ('08) |
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| Kendra Kinscherf ('07) |
This volunteer work week is being coordinated by the Student Hurricane Network (SHN), a national association dedicated to providing long-term assistance to communities affected by Hurricane Katrina. SHN works with law students and administrators from all over the U.S. to create and coordinate volunteer opportunities for law students in the Gulf Coast. Here at BU Law John Anderman (‘08) and Kendra Kinscherf (‘07) have taken the lead in organizing a BU chapter of SHN and will be part of the team going to New Orleans. Our students are working with BU Law administrators to ensure that travel costs are as low as possible, including accommodations in hostels. Other participating law schools have funded these student trips through discretionary funds, faculty donations, fundraising events and alumni donations.
On previous SHN trips, law students have been assigned to work with the Advancement Project, the Advocacy Center, the Louisiana American Civil Liberties Union, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Capital Appeals Project, Common Ground, the Mississippi Center for Justice, Mississippi Legal Services, Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, New Orleans Legal Assistance Center, Orleans Parish Juvenile Court Recovery, People's Hurricane Relief Fund, the Rebuilding Louisiana Coalition and a variety of private practitioners.
Legislative Monitoring Project
For students who don’t go to New Orleans for the pro bono spring break initiative, there are many other ways to get involved. BU Law is taking the lead nationally in the Legislative Monitoring Project. Clinical Associate Professor Cynthia Barr ('87) and Kinscherf are spearheading the national effort to follow legislation related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the Gulf Coast, reporting on this legislation to attorneys in the region.
Matchmakers For Justice Project
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BU Law students may be selected to participate in Matchmakers for Justice (M4J). M4J pairs hurricane victims with law students across the country. Students make a semester commitment to provide long-term one-on-one support to assist displaced residents in securing quality jobs, education, health care and housing. Interested law students participate in a competitive application process. The program begins in January 2007 with 50 law students. Selected students will travel to New Orleans for a two-day training, during which they meet the residents with whom they have been paired and local attorneys who represent the residents in a wide variety of matters. Program founder and alumnus Steve Fischbach (’83) of Rhode Island Legal Services has been instrumental in training and advising students through the program's duration.
How You Can Help
Not everyone can spend a week volunteering their time to help victims of Hurricane Katrina who remain devastated by this disaster, but there’s still something you can do. BU Law students need to raise money to pay for their week of work in New Orleans. You can probably remember the financial strains of law school, and students today have similar problems. Our students will volunteer their time for a full week without compensation because they are deeply committed to contributing their developing legal skills to recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast region.
This is the time of year when people naturally think about giving. Would you like to help cover student expenses for this pro bono initiative? You can do this by contributing to BU Law’s Annual Fund and noting that you want your contribution earmarked for the Hurricane Katrina Volunteer Work Week. You can make a tax-deductible donation on-line here. We can’t all make it to the Gulf Coast to do pro bono work, but we can ensure that BU Law is well-represented. Thank you!
Alumni In The News
Here’s the latest news on what your fellow BU Law alumni are doing:
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| >>View all alumni news. |
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Faculty Focus |
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>>View all BU Law faculty information, including bios, publications and interests. |
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Upcoming Events>>View full 2007 event schedule.
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Boston University Announces Strategic Plan: "One BU"This month President Brown’s Strategic Planning Coordinating Task Force released the framework for a new University strategic plan. The goal is for undergraduate and graduate education, research, faculty, student life and administrative services to be expanded, enriched and united to become “One BU.” The plan also seeks to globalize the BU experience through internships, community service, study abroad programs and training for students and faculty. The One BU frameworks seeks to make BU an inclusive, integrated and connected University that works in concert to leverage its significant strengths. “One of the great attractions of the University is its fantastic breadth and diversity,” task-force member and professor Laurence Kotlikoff told BU Today. “[But] we operate far too much as separate parts. We are not connecting enough and not taking advantage of our synergies.” Specific plan recommendations include asking alumni to mentor undergraduates, creating a graduate student center and providing faculty-led multidisciplinary seminars to first-year students. “This report is really about an image for the University as a whole,” Brown told BU Today. “It’s about our principles and what our competitive advantage may be if we craft a university around them, and it offers a way to think about the decisions we make, going forward.” The task force recently launched a Web site which features the strategy’s framework and invites members of the BU community to post comments. This report marks the start of the next step in the planning process: a University-wide conversation about BU's mission and direction. Discussion and input from the entire BU community will be crucial for the realization of a coherent, thoughtful plan. >>View task force report and post feedback.
Did You Know?
BU Law was one of the first established law schools to admit and graduate Black students. The first Black graduate of BU Law on record was Emanuel M. Hewlett (1877). Hewlett was one of the leading Black criminal defense attorneys in the nation and an honored statesman.
Calendar Year-End GivingThank you for supporting BU Law this year. If you haven't already made a gift to the School, please consider a donation by the end of the calendar year to take advantage of the 2006 tax deduction. Congress passed the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which allows you to make a gift from your IRA without undesirable tax effects (view details about IRA gifts under the Pension Protection Act) . You can give on-line here, or to make your annual donation to the BU Law Fund by mail, please send your donation to: Boston University School of Law |
