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April 2007
Welcome to The Drexel Docket – Drexel Law's e-newsletter. The Docket brings you updates about the college; stories about what the faculty and students are doing; and news we think will be of interest to current and prospective students, pre-law advisors, co-op sponsors, alumni of the University, and friends of the law school. If you have comments or suggestions, please send them to us using the link at the end of this issue. We invite you to visit us at http://www.drexel.edu/law.
- Drexel Celebrates Opening of New Law Building
- Accepted Students’ Days a Resounding Success
- Co-op Spotlight: Susan Brooks
- Conversations with the Profession: Tom Kline presents Hall v. SEPTA
- Amy Montemarano Helps Students Land Careers
- Faculty News
Drexel Celebrates Opening of New Law Building
After months of temporary offices and borrowed classrooms, the much-anticipated day finally arrived for Drexel’s law students, faculty, and staff on Monday, January 8. The doors opened to the brand-new law building for the first time. Students coming in from the building’s main entrance on Market Street commented on the retro-modern design, intimate classrooms, and comfortable nooks to study and meet. Since then, students have also welcomed the opening of Drexel’s two-storied, glass-walled library, which features spacious reading locales, views of Drexel’s campus and the Center City skyline, and an array of electronic and print legal resources.
To help Drexel Law commemorate this important milestone, on Monday, April 9, City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, United States Senator Arlen Specter, and United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. served as Drexel’s honored speakers at our ribbon-cutting ceremony. Drexel was delighted to have such distinguished guests join our community and help us celebrate the opening of our building and our successful inaugural year.
For more information and photos about the building, check http://drexel.edu/law/law-building.asp. See the next issue of The Drexel Docket for coverage of the ribbon cutting.
Accepted Students’ Days a Resounding Success
Thanks to the nearly 100 prospective students who joined Drexel for the College of Law’s Accepted Students’ Days on March 10 and 24, these events were memorable for all who attended. Students from more than 18 different states and 63 different colleges and universities took part in a number of activities, including the introduction of Drexel’s Founding Dean Roger Dennis, student and faculty panel discussions, and receptions with members of the bench and bar, including Family Court Judge Idee Fox and the Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, Jane Dalton.
Visiting accepted students had the opportunity to learn more about our cutting-edge Law Co-op program, meet with our accomplished faculty, mingle with our current first-year students and, most importantly, enjoy meeting their future classmates. For those new to Philadelphia, Drexel Law sponsored a lively bus tour through Center City and surrounding neighborhoods. As evidenced by the numbers of student confirmations, Accepted Students’ Days were a great success.
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Co-op Spotlight: Susan Brooks
The inaugural class is eagerly awaiting fall 2007 — when they will have become experienced second-year students and can participate in the Drexel Law Co-op program. For many students, it is one of the main reasons they came here: to have a comprehensive, practical legal experience before they graduate from law school. To ensure the program’s success, it was essential to choose an excellent associate dean for experiential learning, who would both oversee the development of the Law Co-op program as well as the Pro Bono Service Program and in-house legal clinics. Drexel Law found the ideal person in Susan Brooks.
Since 1993 Brooks has been on the faculty at Vanderbilt University Law School, where she served as a clinical education professor with a national reputation for innovation and collaboration. She will formally begin her Drexel career as associate dean and professor of law on July 1, 2007, but she has already been shuttling on a regular basis between Tennessee and Philadelphia to lay the groundwork for the Law Co-op and Pro Bono Service Programs.
“Before I got here,” Brooks says, “Drexel had identified more than 90 willing co-op placements. My first tasks have been reconfirming those placements and getting specific information on who will supervise the students.” Because Drexel’s Law Co-op is part of the academic program in which students will receive a significant amount of credit, quality supervision is vital.
The co-op experience allows students to work at a placement for 20 hours a week for two quarters (almost six months). The potential placements are in both the public and the private sectors in a diverse array of work environments. Placements range from public interest organizations and nonprofits to in-house counsel in corporations of varying sizes, along with positions in traditional law firms. Placements will also be available in judges’ offices and in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. All placements are within commuting distance from the law school, to allow the students to take a Co-op seminar and another course of their choice — all with the goal of making law school a more meaningful and integrated experience.
The next phase will involve matching students with placements for the fall 2007 co-ops (another group will go out in March 2008). As part of the matching process, “students will give us their preferences and go on short interviews,” Brooks says. “We will do the matching to make sure there is a good fit.”
“We have four sections of co-op, and we think we can accommodate 60 to 80 students for the fall. We’re trying to keep the student-to-faculty ratio low. We don’t want more than 20 students per section to ensure a high-quality experience.” To assist with teaching and to increase the program’s ability to handle placements, the office will hire three additional faculty members. The first co-op professor/co-ordinator is Reena Parambath, who was a partner in a law firm, worked in the City Solicitor’s office, and most recently taught legal writing at Widener University School of Law. Brooks expects to have the rest of the co-op professors/coordinators on board by July 1. She also expects to hire a public interest director by November.
Along with co-op, Brooks will oversee the Pro Bono Service Program and in-house Clinical program. Drexel law students must fulfill 50 hours of pro bono work before they graduate, which Brooks says is defined broadly. “It’s not just any community service, but it’s not limited to the direct representation of clients. It does have to be law-related work. And lawyers have to be involved in supervising the students. We’re working up a list of approved pro bono options.”
The in-house Clinical program will also fall under Brooks’s aegis. “In the clinic,” she says, “we will create our own law office. Faculty members will be supervising attorneys. Students will take on real legal matters.”
The Clinical program differs from Law Co-op in that the clinical work will be at Drexel and be supervised directly by our faculty, whereas students in co-op will be supervised by lawyer-mentors in the placement setting supported by co-op professors/coordinators and Dean Brooks.
Although the Pro Bono Service and Clinical programs can be found at other law schools, Brooks says the Law Co-op is unusual. “It’s a hybrid between Drexel’s co-op and conventional field-placement programs that exist at other law schools. We’re trying to emulate the tradition of co-op and adapt it to the law school.
“It’s a challenge to bring that together. Two aspects are unique. One is the level of institutional commitment to the program — it will be a significant aspect of the curriculum. The other is that students will spend considerable time in placements, which will give them in-depth experience in the field.”
Brooks’s experience focuses on the field of family law and child advocacy. “Child welfare is a long-standing passion of mine,” she says. “Philadelphia has a wonderful child advocacy community and some of the best programs in the country.”
For her first few years at Drexel, Brooks’s work will primarily be administrative. Next year she will teach one section of co-op, and may teach other courses in future years. “I love teaching,” she says. “I’m pleased that I’ll be able to keep my hands in it.”
What prompted Brooks to give up her Vanderbilt position and move, along with her family, to Drexel?
“I’ve been happy at Vanderbilt; I’ve had a great career,” she says. “I saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s a startup — not just any law school but one with a unique vision that spoke to me. We have a shared vision of what legal education can be about.” For example? “The idea of integrating experiential learning as a core part of the curriculum. The commitment to public service. Building a real community among faculty and students.”
Brooks grew up in North Jersey and has family in this part of the country. “That was part of the appeal,” she says. “But it was secondary to this incredible opportunity. Especially in a vibrant legal community like this.
Conversations with the Profession: Tom Kline presents Hall v. SEPTA
On March 21, students benefited from Drexel Law’s third and final “Conversations with the Profession,” a series sponsored by the Fox Rothschild law firm in which professionals from the legal sector present salient cases to Drexel Law students to give them an insider’s view of a lawyer’s professional life. Presenting on the theme "Something Good from Something Bad: the Real Role of the Trial Lawyer,” Tom Kline of Kline & Specter, P.C. featured the well-known Hall v. SEPTA case, in which Mr. Kline represented a little boy — who had been seriously injured — and his family. After trial, a jury awarded them a multimillion dollar judgment against SEPTA. To Mr. Kline, the “something bad” was the terrible injury to the child; and the “something good” was the change that occurred in SEPTA following the verdict that improved the transportation system for all riders.
Just before Thanksgiving of 1996, four-year-old Shareif Hall, his mother, and older brother were exiting a SEPTA subway station in North Philadelphia. But as the escalator reached the top, one of the steps malfunctioned, severing Shareif’s right foot. Kline demonstrated how SEPTA had known for several years that the escalator at the Cecil B. Moore Station on North Broad Street needed repairs.
The jury awarded a $51 million verdict against SEPTA, which both sides settled the following year for $7.4 million. There also followed extensive changes in the program of inspecting, repairing, and replacing subway station escalators.
Mr. Kline has received numerous honors and titles for his lifetime of trial work. He has been recognized by the National Law Journal as one of the top 10 litigators in Pennsylvania and is listed among The Best Lawyers in America. He is a member of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers, an organization limited to just one percent of the lawyers in each state. Drexel Law students were fortunate not only to hear his presentation, but also to sit down with him over dinner and discuss his strategies and some of the exciting cases he has worked on.
Amy Montemarano Helps Students Land Careers
Law students think about where they will find jobs — after their 1L and 2L summers, and after they graduate. At Drexel College of Law, students work with the Career Services Office, and especially its director, Amy Montemarano. She takes a personal approach to providing guidance, practical advice, and opportunities for students to interview and network.
The Career Services Office helps students to develop their individual paths to a career in law, since there are so many ways a student can use a law degree after graduation. “The office does three things,” says Ms. Montemarano. “First, we individually counsel law students about their career plans. We help them with résumés, cover letters, and finding a job that’s in their best interest.”
Second is programming and events. “We put on programs that disseminate information to students about careers in law. We present speakers in many areas of law, speakers who work in different types of practice. They talk about how to be professional, how to network, and how to do job searches.”
Third, the office serves as a liaison between students and the legal community. Montemarano meets with lawyers at law firms and coordinates networking events. The practicing bar’s response to Drexel and its students has been quite positive.
Lawyers typically work in one of four types of job: private practice, public interest or nonprofit, government, and corporate. Montemarano says her counseling varies depending on the student.
“For example,” she says, “students interested in environmental law have a lot of ways to practice it. They could work for a law firm that specializes in environmental law. They could work for a nonprofit like the Sierra Club. They could work for the Environmental Protection Agency. They could work for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in compliance. The advice we give would be different depending on the type of career that interests the student.”
Montemarano herself has long been interested in career counseling. Coming from a teaching background — she taught at Rutgers School of Law in Camden before joining Drexel last summer — she understands what law students need both inside and outside of the classroom.
“I’ve always made career counseling part of my teaching,” she says. “I started working with Drexel as a legal methods professor. That class is about research, writing, and oral arguments. It complements what I’m doing in Career Services. I also teach a class in Interviewing, Counseling, and Negotiation (ICN). That course teaches students how to interact with clients.”
Before becoming a law professor, Montemarano worked in private practice. She clerked for U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler in New Jersey. In law school, she served internships with nonprofit organizations.
“I’m naturally suited to this position, because I have sampled everything,” she says. “I was very attracted to Drexel’s law school because of the co-op [see Spotlight on Susan Brooks]. It’s an invaluable experience for students to explore different legal roles and many different types of law.
“The Law Co-op is like an externship,” Montemarano explains. “It’s more intertwined with the educational component than Drexel’s regular co-op. Students go into the workforce and get academic credit. Co-op is not a job itself, and it’s not specifically designed to be a job-recruiting tool.”
At Career Services, on the other hand, “we help students get regular paying jobs. We help them find jobs for their summers, for when they graduate, and eventually for alumni.
“One of the bigger programs we put on is an on-campus interviewing event — called OCI for short. It’s for second-year students and takes place in the fall. Employers have interviews already scheduled, and the event is screening for employees of open jobs.
“We try to teach students to take ownership of their job search. We give them the tools they need to choose their careers and to advance.”
The Career Services Office will expand as the College of Law adds a second and a third class. One staff member will join the office in the next six months, and another in about a year. Right now, Montemarano does it all — often in the same day.
“We’re a startup operation,” she says. “I’m launching the office. It’s both enjoyable and a challenge.”
Faculty News
Drexel Law professor to clerk for Supreme Court Justice.
Drexel Law is proud to announce the selection of Professor Dana Irwin to serve as law clerk for United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. during the October Term 2008–09. This position will take Professor Irwin away from the classroom for one year, but she will return with a wealth of knowledge to share with her students. Professor Irwin previously clerked for Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia from 2005–06. For more information on Professor Irwin go to http://www.drexel.edu/law/dana-irwin.asp.Drexel University College of Law announces the appointment of three new faculty.
Thomas Brennan will join the faculty this summer but has already has been a part of our community by attending Accepted Students’ Day on March 10. His impressive background includes: Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Business, strategist for Goldman Sachs & Co., and attorney for Cravath, Swaine & Moore, one of New York’s premiere law firms.
Brennan graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, winning the George B. Covington Prize for his work in mathematics. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University and his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He will teach courses in tax and corporate law and join corporate expert Professor Karl Okamoto, director of the Entrepreneurial Business Law concentration, and Founding Dean Roger Dennis, an expert in corporate and securities law.
Lisa McElroy also had an opportunity to meet accepted students when she participated in the faculty panel at Accepted Students’ Day on March 24. Her remarkable background includes: assistant professor of law and dean of skills training at Southern New England School of Law, faculty at Roger Williams Ralph R. Papitto School of Law, and practice at the Boston firms of Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault and Gadsby & Hannah. Professor McElroy has also written biographies for children on Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Her most recent children’s book, John G. Roberts, Jr.: Chief Justice, is the first authorized biography of the Chief Justice.
Bret Asbury brings to Drexel Law his insight working with two of the largest law firms in Philadelphia. His notable background includes: associate at Dechert LLP, clerking for Judge Julio M. Fuentes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.
Asbury graduated cum laude in English from Princeton University, where he won the Ruth J. Simmons Thesis Prize for best senior thesis in African-American studies. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School and served as the managing editor of the Yale Law Journal. He will teach courses in civil procedure and law and literature, and will be working with other faculty in choosing the inaugural members of the law review this summer.
For more information about the Drexel University College of Law faculty, visit http://drexel.edu/law/law-school-faculty.asp.
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