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The City University of New York Law Review is a specialty journal devoted to publishing social-justice scholarship, engaging the public-interest bar, and fostering student excellence in writing, legal analysis, and research. The journal is published by students at the CUNY School of Law, the only law school in the New York metropolitan area whose chief mission is to train public-interest lawyers and champion diversity in the legal profession.

The journal is seeking submissions from scholars, practitioners, and students for its Winter 2014 issue, which will continue the journal’s tradition of advancing legal scholarship highlighting the touchstones of our publication’s work—including civil rights, progressive legal reform, the impact of the law on minorities and marginalized communities, international human rights, and attorneys’ insights on how recent developments in the law have affected their public-interest practices.

One-page proposals and finished manuscripts for consideration by our editorial board should be submitted to cunylr@law.cuny.edu. All offers to publish and final decisions are expected to be finalized by Aug. 5, 2013.

In addition, the journal is seeking shorter, more time-sensitive contributions—such as comments on recent federal or state case law, critiques of legislative proposals, and legally relevant analyses of current events—for inclusion in our evolving digital platform at the City University of New York Law Review website at www.cunylawreview.org.  Submissions for digital consideration should be sent directly to the Digital Articles Editor, at ldavis@mail.law.cuny.edu.

Recent editions of the journal have included symposia volumes on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and pioneering human-rights attorney Rhonda Copelon, a special edition on elder law featuring winning articles from the American Bar Association Law and Aging Student Competition, and a commemorative issue highlighting scholarship by CUNY Law faculty and students on the occasion of the school’s 30^th anniversary.

Article, Vol. 15.2

The CUNY Law Review is pleased to release our first-ever web-exclusive article as a companion to Issue 15.2’s release. The article, titled “Reargument in Kiobel: The End of the Alien Tort Statute As We Know It?,” was co-written by CUNY Law student Alex van Schaick in collaboration with NYU Law student Gabriel Hopkins. Stay tuned for more web-exclusive content from the CUNY Law Review.

The City University of New York Law Review would like to invite you to a discussion on the merits of alternative forms of legal education, From Main Street to Court Square: Thirty Years of CUNY Law and Alternative Models of Legal Education. The event, with dinner and reception to follow, is taking place Wednesday, February 6, 6:00 PM, in the Auditorium. The discussion will feature:

• Hon. Kristin Booth Glen, N.Y. Surrogate’s Court; Former Dean of CUNY Law
• Prof. Pamela Edwards, Director of the Center for Diversity in the Legal Profession, CUNY School of Law;
• Adam Shoop, Law Graduate, The Bronx Defenders, CUNY Law ’12
• Prof. Frank Deale, CUNY School of Law (Moderator)

Come hear panelists discuss and debate the merits of alternative forms of legal education; the implications of race, class, and access in legal education and practice; the role of CUNY Law in the legal landscape, past and present; and the role of practitioners and law students in shaping the future of legal advocacy.

The City University of New York Law Review and CUNY Law Labor Coalition would like to invite you to a discussion on worker co-ops, Fire Your Boss: Workers Cooperatives, Community Development, and Social Change! The event, with dinner and book reception to follow, is taking place Monday, November 12, 5:30 PM, in the Auditorium. The discussion will feature:

• Omar Freilla, founder of Green Worker Cooperatives, an organization dedicated to incubating green and worker-owned businesses in the South Bronx
• Michael Peck, North American delegate of the Mondragon Cooperatives Corporation, the largest worker cooperative in the world
• Brian Glick, Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Fordham Community Economic Development Clinic
• Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Associate Professor of Community Justice and Social Economic Development, Department of African American Studies at CUNY – John Jay College
• Moderated by CUNY Law’s Own Carmen Huertas-Noble, founding director of the Community & Economic Development Clinic

Come hear from our guests about why they believe worker ownership is a way out of the current economic and environmental morass, and their experiences helping to develop cooperative enterprises!

The event will be followed by a release reception celebrating CUNY Law Review’s latest publication, Issue 15.1. Dinner will be served. Attendance is free!

Panel Transcript, Vol. 14.1

Editor’s Note: The following excerpt contains Dean Spade’s introduction to a panel discussion with Rickke Mananzala, Soniya Munshi, Nadia Qurashi, Elana Redfield, and Dean Spade. April 1, 2010. Dean Spade served as the Haywood Burns Chair at the City University of New York School of Law for 2010, and recently published the book Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of the Law (2012). Click here for the full transcript.

During the Spring Semester of 2010, I served as the Haywood Burns Chair [FN 1] at the City University of New York School of Law and had the opportunity to teach Poverty Law to a class of passionate, brilliant students who came to law school from social movement work in many sectors hoping to gain new tools for making transformative change. [FN 2]  In the course, I aimed to create a critical dialogue about the role of law in structuring wealth inequality and remedying such inequality.  The interdisciplinary course materials were selected to assist students in engaging in critical analysis about the roles of capitalism, white supremacy, settler colonialism, patriarchy, and ablism in structuring law, as well as law’s role in structuring those systemic conditions. Continue reading →

by Shekar Krishnan

PIPS, Vol. 14.1

Editor’s Note: This article introduction is from the Public Interest Practitioners Section (PIPS) of Volume 14.1. of the CUNY Law Review. Read the full article here.

In May 2009, the landlord of a rent-stabilized building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn openly declared his intention to force out the current tenants if they did not leave on their own. Located on North 8th Street right off trendy Bedford Avenue, the property was prime real estate in Williamsburg. The only obstacles that stood between the landlord and the potential for him to reap large profits were the rent-stabilized status of the building and all the tenants who paid the regulated rent, a fraction of the market rate. Once he forced those tenants to leave, he could “gut rehab” the apartments, move them out of the rent-stabilization system, and easily generate five to six times the amount of revenue from the building. Continue reading →