Come join us for the second installment of our new discussion series, CUNITY Conversations!

As you recall, CUNITY Conversations is a discussion series designed to create discussion around a particular topic.   The discussion leaders are the Law Review’s Note and Comments student authors, along with professors and practitioners.  It is an informal time to get together, hang out, and talk about a relevant social justice issue.

The next installment of the CUNITY Conversation series is Wednesday, October 8, from 6-8pm, in the Community Room, 3/116.

The Law Review’s Notes and Comments author and 3L, Brett Dolin, and CUNY Law Prof. Andrea McArdle will be co-leading this month’s conversation, revolving around the topics of Brett’s law review article:

Can a plan to pay for an underfunded public park lead to unchecked privatization of city services and threaten to compromise voting rights under the Equal Protection Clause? Brett’s Notes and Comments article, “One Condo, One Vote: The New York BID Act as a Threat to Equal Protection and Democratic Control” examines the role of an obscure city government device, the Business Improvement District, in the privatization of city services and restriction of district voting power to property owners.

The CUNITY Conversation will begin with a discussion of one proposed BID, designed as a funding source for Manhattan’s Hudson River Park, and focus on issues of privatization of government services and democratic control over local government.

Brett Dolin is a 3L at CUNY Law School. His article examines the role of an obscure city government device, the Business Improvement District, in the privatization of municipal services and restriction of fiscal decision-making power to property owners. While in law school, Brett has interned with the Economic Justice Project and Elder Law Clinic at CUNY, with the Government Benefits Project at MFY Legal Services, and with a Justice of the New York Supreme Court. Before law school, Brett worked as assistant curator of a private art collection.

Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law at City University of New York School of Law, teaches a variety of experiential courses, including seminars she designed in judicial rhetoric and in urban land use and community lawyering. Andrea begins her sixth year as chair or co-chair of the Law School’s Curriculum Committee, and, as Director of Legal Writing, has shaped the development of CUNY’s writing-intensive curriculum. In 2013 she received a teaching award from the graduating class. Before joining the CUNY Law School faculty, she taught in the Lawyering Program at NYU School of Law, served as Lawyering Faculty Coordinator and, as NYU Lawyering Theory Workshop Coordinator, developed an interdisciplinary faculty workshop series to provide a framework for thinking about how lawyers work.