Top 10 Moments of Fall 2020
Stand-out moments from this year's unique fall semester.
Top Moments of Fall 2020
Stand-out moments from this year’s unique fall semester.
As the semester ends, we reflected on some of the moments that stood out this fall. The pandemic may have changed the way we did some things—the year’s highlights included the school’s first virtual orientation and virtual law review conference. But despite changed circumstances, BU Law students, faculty, and alumni continued to tackle important work this year, through clinics, advocacy, and more.
Here are a few of BU Law’s notable moments from fall 2020.
1
We learned about our newest students
These students accepted the unique challenge of starting law school during a pandemic.
We caught up with eight new JD students to learn about their backgrounds, their hobbies, and their reasons for starting law school.
These 1Ls come from across the US—with 35 states represented, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico—and 21 countries. They have studied music, political science, psychology, and more at 137 undergraduate institutions. The majority—67 percent—have more than one year of postgraduate experience; they’ve worked on political campaigns, taught high school biology, and volunteered with the Peace Corps.
Similarly, new LLM, masters, and certificate students hail from 24 countries and represent professional attorneys at every career level, from age 20 to 63, all seeking to advance their careers.
This group may be disbursed, but they are all outstanding and representative of what makes the BU Law community special.
2
The school welcomed new faculty members
The new full-time, clinical, and visiting professors are experts in health law, critical race theory, environmental law, intellectual property, and more.
“These new faculty members write pathbreaking work on accent discrimination in jury selection, on the intersection of corporate and environmental law, and bring expertise in housing and consumer protection law—all important and innovative fields,” says Anna di Robilant, associate dean for equity, justice & engagement. “We are proud to bring these outstanding scholars and teachers into our community and contribute to the goals of greater diversity.”
3
Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig was honored for antiracism efforts
Four other Black women law deans were also honored with The Association of American Law Schools’ inaugural Impact Award.
The deans were recognized for their work in creating the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project after this summer’s protests sparked calls for racial justice.
The other deans recognized were Penn State Dickinson Law Dean Danielle M. Conway, Washburn University School of Law Dean Carla D. Pratt, Howard University School of Law Dean Danielle Holley-Walker, and Rutgers Law School Dean Kimberly Mutcherson.
“The other deans and I have all grown up in a world where if you’re African American and you start talking about racism, it can be viewed as not appropriate because it’s a topic that so many white people don’t talk about,” Onwuachi-Willig says.
“So, this recognition shows that it’s not only appropriate but it’s important work and necessary and this is the exact kind of impact that law deans and law schools should have.”
4
Jay Wexler paid tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsberg
The professor shares anecdotes and reflections about his time spent clerking for the Justice from 1998 to 1999.
“My first conversation with Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not go well,” Wexler says.
“Alas, I somehow ended up getting the job anyway, and the year that I spent working for the Court’s second-ever female Supreme Court Justice was undoubtedly the highlight of my professional life. What a privilege it was to work for someone so brilliant, so careful, so precise, so diligent, a woman who was one of the rare Justices in the history of the nation who was a famous lawyer before she was put on the bench, having battled successfully for over a decade to ensure that women and men would be treated equally under the law.”
5
Students in the Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Program won asylum for their client
Kayla Walker (’21), Daisy Figueroa (’21) and Maggie Lovric (’21) won an asylum case in immigration court as part of their clinical work with Professor Sarah Sherman Stokes.
6
BU Law launched the Barbara Jordan Lecture Series on Race, Law and Inequality
The series was named for trailblazing Congresswoman and BU Law Alum Barbara Jordan (’59)
Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig proposed naming the series after her childhood hero.
“She was the first African American woman elected to Congress from the South, and she was a really outspoken advocate for justice,” Onwuachi-Willig says. “She was one of the names my mother always invoked around the house as someone I should look up to, to see all the possibilities I had here in the United States.”
7
Alumni, students, and faculty worked to safeguard voting rights
The Record collected stories on the BU Law community’s efforts on voting in 2020.
Don Calloway (’05), founder of the National Voter Protection Action Fund, combated voter suppression at the polls and through policy; Gretchen Bennett (’14) worked against voter suppression in Ohio; and students from the BU/MIT Technology Law Clinic helped MIT researchers disclose vulnerabilities in a smartphone voting app.
8
The UN World Food Programme won the Nobel Peace Prize
Alum Adam Jaffee (’06) works as a programme officer to provide communities with affordable, nutritious food.
Adam Jaffee (’06) says BU Law’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (now the Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Program) helped him develop the “social justice lens” through which he views the world.
“While in the clinic, I represented political asylum candidates who taught me a great deal about their different backgrounds and the hardships that many people endured and overcame to achieve safety and stability,” says Jaffee. “Although the idea and opportunity to pursue food justice didn’t arrive until several years later, I began to see that many of the inequities that defined periods of my clients’ lives were linked to food.”
9
The BU Law Review Conference Went Virtual
Marijuana law topics ranged from marijuana’s effect on criminal justice reform, public health and equity, and taxation.
This year’s Boston University Law Review conference brought together scholars in several fields as well as practitioners (doctors, regulators, attorneys, entrepreneurs, and more) to discuss what we can learn from past attempts to regulate marijuana and where we should go from here.
10
Kimberly Flores (’22) received the Leadership Scholarship from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
Seven BU Law alums were also named Top Women in Law by the publication.
Kimberly Flores (’22) received the Leadership Scholarship from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly as part of the 2020 Top Women of Law issue.
“I wanted to be in a position to help people navigate the complex systems in this country and make an impact on a larger scale to help create a more equitable society,” Flores says about her path to law school.
Seven BU Law alumni were also named in the magazine’s Top Women of Law issue for 2020: Lizette Perez-Deisboeck (’91), Chiara LaPlume (’01), Elizabeth L.B. Greene (’92), Kathleen R. Cruickshank (’87), Elise Busny (’94), Marianne Ajemian, and Grace Bacon Garcia (’98).
Read more from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.
