Sign up today to learn how to apply for the Maryland bar exam

 

Claudia Diamond, assistant dean for academic and writing support, will expertly guide
you through the Maryland Bar Exam application and provide you with important
insight to help you:

• understand the timeline for filing and the logistics of the exam itself
• navigate difficult questions such as criminal history, debt disclosure, character
and fitness
• learn how educational institutions and individuals play a role in your application
• become familiar with how the Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., bar
exams differ from the Maryland exam.

Attend either session:

Wednesday, Nov. 1 — noon
Thursday, Nov. 2 — 5 p.m.

Room 603
John and Frances Angelos Law Center

Read the PDF here.

Curacao study-abroad deadline is this Friday. Sign up ASAP!

 

 

Don’t delay! The deadline to apply for this winter’s study-abroad program in Curacao is this Friday (Nov. 2, 2017).

Think of it this way: Cold, slushy, gray Baltimore or warm, sunny Curacao with its crystal-clear, turquoise seas?

The Curacao winter study-abroad program is a three-week course in international and comparative law. Based at the University of Curacao in the Caribbean, the program allows students to earn 4 credits by studying with professors from the University of Baltimore School of Law, Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law and the Erasmus School of Law. Students examine the legal institutions of the Americas and Europe and also experience the unique legal and social cultures of Curacao, which reflect African, Caribbean and European influences and traditions. The American Bar Association-accredited program includes local court visits and guided field trips.

Dec. 16, 2017, to Jan. 6, 2018

Tuition & fees:
$3,800 for 4 credits, course materials, special events and admission

Room & partial board:
$1,900 (includes accommodation in a double room at the Hilton Curacao and specified meals on class days)

Contact:
Lisa Sparks
University of Baltimore School of Law
410-837-5986
lsparks@ubalt.edu

law.ubalt.edu/curacao

Grossman: Speaking out about exploitation a personal choice

In a letter to The Baltimore Sun, Professor Nienke Grossman took issue with a columnist who characterized as “willingly silent” people who choose not to speak out about their experiences of exploitation.

“Victims of harassment decide whether to speak out for a whole host of reasons, including their assessments of the impact on their career and life goals, families and reputations, their doubts about whether they may have unwittingly done something to provoke the harassment, and whether they think speaking out will stop the harasser,” Grossman wrote in “Allow victims of harassment to decide whether to speak out” (letter, Oct. 16, 2017).

Grossman wrote in response to an Oct. 13 column titled “The Harvey Weinstein in the room.”

“While we should judge the Harvey Weinsteins of the world and their enablers, we should make sure to give their victims the nonjudgmental space to make their own choices,” Grossman said, adding that society must redress the imbalance of power between men and women before real changes are possible.

“Let’s take care not to blame the victims for their failure to speak up,” Grossman concluded. “Let’s focus, instead, on the enablers of the Harvey Weinsteins of the world, as well as the social conditions that gave rise to them.”

Read the letter.

Learn more about Professor Grossman.

Fannie Angelos Program highlighted in Baltimore Sun article

An article and an accompanying video in today’s Baltimore Sun highlight the work of the University of Baltimore School of Law’s Fannie Angelos Program for Academic Excellence.

The program, which recruits African-American undergraduates from Maryland’s four historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, received the ABA’s Diversity Leadership Award this past spring (see earlier blog post).

Read “ISO African-American law students: University of Baltimore recruits top talent from historically black colleges” (Oct. 17, 2017).

The program is the focus of this year’s Baltimore Law, the annual magazine of the UB School of Law.

Miller: Sessions claims on asylum-seekers ‘wildly inaccurate’

Professor Nickole Miller

In a letter to The Washington Post, Professor Nickole Miller said statements about asylum-seekers by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions were “wildly inaccurate and dangerous.”

Wrote Miller, a clinical teaching fellow in the Immigrant Rights Clinic:

“The Oct. 13 news article ‘Citing ‘rampant abuse and fraud,’ Sessions urges tighter asylum rules’ quoted Attorney General Jeff Sessions as saying that many asylum claims ‘lacked merit’ and are ‘simply a ruse to enter the country illegally.’ As one of the ‘dirty immigration lawyers’ who has represented hundreds of asylum seekers, I find these claims wildly inaccurate and dangerous. When I ask my clients, the majority of them children, why they came to the United States, they invariably tell me the same thing: I had no choice — I was running for my life.”

Read “Jeff Sessions’s claims about asylum seekers were wildly inaccurate” (letter, Oct. 15, 2017).

Miller, who joined the Immigrant Rights Clinic in July, focuses on defending immigrant communities from systemic injustices in the legal system. Before joining the UB faculty, she was a managing attorney with the Children’s Representation Project at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles.

Learn more about Professor Miller.

Nov. 14: Judge Lee of the ‘rocket docket’ to address students

Judge Gerald Bruce Lee (ret.) of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia — known as the “rocket docket” for the speed with which it processes cases — will speak about his experience on the federal bench and give advice to future lawyers.

Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017
10:30-11:45 a.m.
John and Frances Angelos Law Center
Room 202

**NOTE: The event will take place in Room 202 — not in 102, as indicated in the invitation.**

Judge Lee retired on Sept. 30, 2017, after 19 years on the federal bench. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1998.

RSVP here.

RSVP now for 4th Annual Gala for the Fannie Angelos Program

Don’t miss the 4^th Annual Gala for the Fannie Angelos Program for Academic Excellence, the recipient of the American Bar Association’s 2017 Diversity Leadership Award.

Read the cover story of the Fall 2017 issue of Baltimore Law, which focuses on the Fannie Angelos Program.

Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017
6-10 p.m.
Belvedere Hotel
1 E. Chase St.
Baltimore, MD 21202

Tickets:
Before Oct. 19: $160 per person
or $1,500 per table of 10
After Oct. 19: $175 per person

RSVP today — no more than 300 tickets will be sold!

Oct. 24: Law Review symposium to focus on gun violence

Please join the University of Baltimore Law Review for a symposium on gun violence.

Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017
8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
12^th floor
John and Frances Angelos Law Center
1410 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21201

Panelists are to include:

Janice Bledsoe
Baltimore City deputy state’s attorney

David Collins
Investigative reporter, WBAL-TV

Major Byron Conaway
Commanding officer, Baltimore Police Department’s Homeland Security Section

Cassandra Kercher Crifasi, Ph.D.
Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research

Staci Pipkin
Rubin & Pipkin

Jonathan Thompson
Executive director, National Sheriffs’ Association

Moderator: Jim Astrachan
Astrachan Gunst & Thomas
Adjunct professor, University of Baltimore School of Law

RSVP here or click on the image.

Toward parity: Grossman takes part in GQUAL Conference

Professor Nienke Grossman (left) and Howard University Professor Josephine Dawuni in front of the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands.

Professor Nienke Grossman took part last week in the GQUAL Conference in The Hague. Founded two years ago at UN headquarters in New York, the group – which includes representatives of states, as well as leading scholars, lawyers, jurists and activists – seeks to raise awareness about the underrepresentation of women in virtually all international tribunals and monitoring bodies, according to the conference website.

The conference, held Oct. 3-5, 2017, at The Hague Institute for Global Justice in The Netherlands, featured discussions and workshops devoted to academic research and policies designed to increase the participation of women in international tribunals and monitoring bodies.

Grossman took part in a panel with Ana Helena Chacón, vice president of Costa Rica, and served as the rapporteur and organizer of a working group on achieving parity on the International Court of Justice.

Learn more about the GQUAL conference.

Learn more about Professor Grossman and the UB School of Law’s Center for International and Comparative Law.

TODAY! Hear the Ravens’ general counsel discuss his job

Join Brandon Etheridge, general counsel for the Baltimore Ravens, for a discussion about what it’s like to manage the legal department of a major organization. A question-and-answer session will follow Etheridge’s talk, which is sponsored by the law school’s chapter of EASL (the Entertainment, Arts & Sports Law Society).

Refreshments will be served.

Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017
12-1:15 p.m.

John and Frances Angelos Law Center
1401 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21201
Room 803

Please RSVP here or click on the image above.

Learn about EASL and other student groups at the UB School of Law.